China’s US$128 billion pork industry is under threat by a deadly, mysterious virus
The African swine fever virus - harmless to humans - can survive for more than a year in cured pork, which is how it probably took hold in Russia’s backyard farms last year, before spreading to China through illicit trade of hogs
Six weeks after African swine fever emerged in China, scientists are racing to pinpoint how the deadly pig virus entered the world’s biggest pork market and spread between farms hundreds of miles apart.
Finding answers is critical for stopping the further international spread of what Russian researchers consider the most dangerous swine disease.
The virus has been reported in seven Chinese provinces since August 1, causing the deaths of about 40,000 pigs and threatening major disruption of a US$128 billion industry. It’s also widened its grip on Europe, with the first cases in Belgium reported September 13.
With no vaccine to protect animals, researchers say the lethal virus - which can survive for more than a year in dry-cured ham - is likely to spread rapidly among China’s 433 million pigs and reach other countries, potentially even the US.
“What we’re seeing so far is just the tip of the iceberg,” Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in Rome, said after an emergency three-day meeting in Bangkok this month. The emergence of the disease in other countries “will almost certainly occur,” he said.
Researchers at China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Changchun said the pig pathogen on local farms matched a highly virulent strain that emerged in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2007 and subsequently dispersed across Russia and Estonia.