Afraid of African swine fever? Try feeding your pigs vegetables, Chinese scientists tell farmers
Chinese researchers say some common plants harbour a molecule that appears to alter the DNA of the virus plaguing pig farms from Africa to South America
Common plants such as cabbage, cauliflower and rapeseed could hold the key to stopping the spread of the deadly African swine fever virus threatening pork production around the world, according to research by a major Chinese government laboratory.
Researchers at the Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology in Qingdao, in eastern China’s Shandong province, said an unnamed molecule found in the plants could deactivate an important enzyme used by the African swine fever virus to assemble its DNA.
“Adding the vegetables to feed may help save a pig farm from the epidemic,” Wang Xin, a scientist involved in the research project, said.
But a Chinese agriculture official cautioned that the findings from the research might be difficult to put into practice.
The virus, for which there is not yet a vaccine or cure, originated in Africa more that a century ago and has spread to Europe, South America and Asia.