Demand-driven spreading patterns of African swine fever in China

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious hemorrhagic viral disease of domestic and wild pigs. ASF has led to major economic losses adverse impacts on livelihoods stakeholders involved in the pork food system many European Asian countries. While epidemiology virus (ASFV) fairly well understood, there neither any effective treatment nor vaccine. In this paper, we propose novel method model spread ASFV China by integrating data import/export, transportation networks, distribution centers. We first empirically analyze overall spatiotemporal patterns conduct extensive experiments evaluate efficacy number geographic distance measures. These empirical analyses within indicate that occurrence not been purely dependent geographical from existing infected regions. Instead, supply–demand have played an important role. Predictions based new measure achieve better performance predicting among Chinese provinces thus potential enable design more control interventions.