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TEHRAN, Jul 13 -Governments, universities and private businesses around the world are racing to develop a vaccine for African swine fever before the disease spreads around the world.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -The virus, deadly to pigs, but harmless to humans, is spreading relentlessly across Asia. Half of China's pig herd might soon be gone, according to some estimates, and that's roughly a quarter of the world's pigs.
The disease also has infected pigs in Vietnam, Mongolia, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Bulgaria. Because of its potential to destroy a nation's pig industry, non-infected countries, including those in Europe and North America, are throwing up as many defenses as possible to keep it out.
But with no vaccine, there is only so much they can do.
"The African swine fever threat won't go away," said Dan Rock, a professor of pathobiology at the University of Illinois, who is working with colleagues in Russia to develop a vaccine. "This will be a persistent issue for a very long time. There is quite a bit of work going on in a lot of places" to create a vaccine.
There are some early signs of success.
In the last three years, scientists working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture have created three "vaccine candidates." These are vaccines that -- in a lab -- have successfully immunized pigs against the disease.
A state-run lab in China announced in May that it identified two vaccine candidates that successfully inoculated pigs, according to China Daily. The Vietnamese government announced it had similar success in June, according to View Nam News.
Promising discoveries
Other researchers in the United States, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom say they've made promising discoveries. A New Jersey company on Monday, for example, said it made a "significant advancement" toward a vaccine, and was seeking a patent.
Even with progress, it is unlikely a vaccine will become commercially available anytime soon. In fact, in May, USDA Under Secretary Greg Ibach predicted it could be eight years before a vaccine reaches the market. Other, more progressive, predictions hover around 2 or 3 years.
"Due to the urgency, there are ways to accelerate the regulatory process and dedicate every available resource to it," said Luis Rodriguez, a USDA foreign animal disease research leader. "But even if that is the case, it is still going to be more than a year. It is not going to be in the next few months."
The same is true in other nations.
"From lab results to getting to use in the field is a long process," said Linda Dixon, a lead African swine fever virus researcher at The Pirbright Institute, a center in the United Kingdom that works to prevent and control viral disease.
Source:upi
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