African swine fever (ASF) is an acute, highly contagious and deadly viral hemorrhagic fever of domestic pigs caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV), a double-stranded DNA virus of the family Asfarviridae. In this study, molecular diagnosis and characterization of outbreak ASFV in northern Tanzania, was performed on spleen, lymph node, kidney, and heart samples collected in June and July 2013 from domestic pigs that died during a hemorrhagic disease outbreak. Confirmatory diagnosis of ASF was performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) by partial amplification of B646L gene of ASFV encoding the major capsid protein p72 using PPA1/PPA2 primers. PCR using PPA1/PPA2 primers produced an expected PCR product size, confirming ASF outbreak in northern Tanzania. In addition, nucleotide amplification and sequencing, and phylogenetic reconstruction of the variable 3′-end of the …