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Minnesota researchers discover breakthrough African swine fever surrogate virus

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered a surrogate virus to African swine fever that can be used to safely develop mitigation strategies.

Associate professor Declan Schroeder says because ASF is a highly contagious foreign animal disease, they were looking for another model with similar characteristics.

“And one virus system that, believe it or not is a virus that infects algae, has a lot of similarities to that of African swine fever virus.”

He tells Brownfield the surrogate is called EhV and one of the similarities is the ability to withstand extreme heat.

“You have to go to above 100 degrees Celcius, or 200-plus Fahrenheit to even get close to trying to destroy this virus. So that’s the lab part of using this breakthrough virus in our studies.”

Schroeder says the next step is to determine exactly how U.S. protocols should be changed to keep pigs and pig feed safe.