While the outbreak of Wuhan pneumonia (a novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) is still simmering around the world, a new research report from the University of North Carolina (UNC) indicates that the discovery of a new strain of “swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus” (Sads-CoV) in Chinese farmed pigs may not only cause a new wave of swine fever outbreaks in the future, but also have the potential to infect humans across species, calling for close attention to related cases of swine epidemics.
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sads-CoV first infected pigs in Guangzhou, China, in 2016, causing vomiting and diarrhea in infected pigs and killing 90% of piglets within five days, according to media reports.
Last year, a team of 14 epidemiologists, immunologists, and microbiologists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill formed a research team to study Sads-CoV to see if the virus has the ability to infect people across species; Rachel Graham, a professor of epidemiology at the university, said that if an outbreak caused by Sads-CoV were to occur in the U.S., it would be the U.S. pig industry that would bear the brunt of it, “but studies have shown that the virus can adapt to host human liver, intestinal, and respiratory cells, and that the virus can infect human cells.
The most likely way Sads-CoV will be transmitted to humans is through worker-animal contact on pig farms, according to the report, which was scheduled to be released earlier this year. However, the global outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan this year underscores the importance of developing early defenses against the coronavirus, and the report also warns that China should continue to monitor the outbreak of Sads-CoV to prevent it from spreading to humans.
Recent Comments