Currently browsing posts about: Swine flu

What got my attention was this headline: The World’s Deadliest Pig Virus Creeps Closer to the U.S.

The Western Hemisphere registered its first outbreak of African swine fever virus in almost 40 years on July 28 at pig farms in the Dominican Republic. By September the devastating disease had been found in neighboring Haiti. Now the U.S., the world’s largest pork producer after China, is scrambling to keep the malady from washing ashore and shutting down its $7.7 billion pork export industry.

Unless you are a pig farmer, you probably don’t know much about this disease.  According to the USDA, 

African swine fever is a highly contagious and deadly viral disease affecting both domestic and feral swine of all ages. ASF is not a threat to human health and cannot be transmitted from pigs to humans. It is not a food safety issue…It has never been found in the United States – and we want to keep it that way.

Why?

ASF is a devastating, deadly disease that would have a significant impact on U.S. livestock producers, their communities and the economy if it were found here. There is no treatment or vaccine available for this disease. The only way to stop this disease is to depopulate all affected or exposed swine herds.

“Depopulate” is a euphemism for slaughtering the pigs.  Hence the concern about its likely entry into the U.S.

I get an almost daily newsletter, African Swine Fever Update with frequent updates on where the virus is doing its worst.

But now hopeful news: USDA’s ASF vaccine candidate successful in tests

USDA has been working on a vaccine and just announced its success.

Newly published USDA research, as highlighted in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, shows that ARS scientists have developed a vaccine candidate with the ability to be commercially produced while still maintaining its vaccine efficacy against Asian ASFV strains when tested in both European and Asian breeds of swine…The onset of immunity was revealed in approximately one-third of the swine by second week post-vaccination, with full protection in all swine achieved by the fourth week.

So, Covid vaccines for us, ASF vaccines for pigs. Let’s go for both!

The Guardian’s Mike Davis says Mexican swine flu is “a genetic chimera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty.”  No wonder the pork industry is so upset about the bad publicity caused by swine flu.  Their solution to this problem?  Call it something else.  This worked and the official name of the disease is now Influenza A (H1N1).    No direct evidence, it seems, links pork CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) to this particular strain of H1N1 to human influenza.  Of course there is no direct evidence.  Nobody has been looking for it.

But now Canada has found some pigs sick with H1N1 at a farm in Alberta.  Oops again.  The World Health Organization (WHO) thinks the pigs caught the disease from a farm worker who had traveled to Mexico.  WHO reports nearly 900 cases worldwide.  As for the U.S., the New York Times has a nifty map of where the cases have been found.

Scientists have been worrying about transmission of swine flu to people for some time.  In 2003, Science magazine noted that the classic swine flu virus, H1N1, was mutating rapidly, suggesting that neither pigs nor people could remain immune to it.  And nobody was doing any surveillance for swine flu.  The Institute of Medicine, also worried, published major reports on the threat, prevention, and treatment of pandemic flu.

These days, the CDC is monitoring the situation and reports the U.S. case count is up to 226 (as of May 3).  The CDC also reports international cases and describes specific cases in California and Texas.  And, it notes, the virus is becoming increasingly resistant to antiviral drugs.  But not to worry.  It doesn’t look H1N1 will turn out to be a big worldwide pandemic like the deadly one in 1918.  At least not this time.

Eating Liberally’s ever curious kat connects the dots between the current swine flu crisis (getting worse by the minute) and China’s interest in buying America’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods.  She wonders what I think about all that.  See the latest Ask Marion: “Who needs bioterrorism when we’ve got manure lagoons.”

April 29 update: Here is Grain’s report on these connections.