November 22, 2019

Northeast Asia reports new diagnostic methods for African swine fever

According to state media Meari, North Korea's veterinary research institute researchers have developed a genetic analysis to diagnose African swine fever (ASF), recently reported United Press International.
 

Meari reported that the genetic analysis method is very efficient in identifying ASF among infected swine.

It added that the same institute have also developed a foot and mouth disease vaccine that could prevent the viral disease from infecting cattle.

North Korea first reported its official ASF case in May 30, 2019. It's estimated that swine herds in North Korea have dropped by more than 55%.

Separately, in a more recent report on November 22 by Central News Agency, a team of students from National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan won silver for developing a fast screening device that detects the African swine fever virus (ASFV) at the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) in the United States earlier this month.

Team leader Wang Wei-cheng said that iGEM aims to inspire teams to work on solutions to problems in their local area and so the Taiwan team decided to develop a device to prevent a widespread epidemic by early detection of ASFV.

After one year of study, the team designed an automated, portable, user-friendly robotic testing instrument called African Swine Fever Autonomous Screening Technology (ASFAST).

ASFAST is capable of detecting ASFV on the spot and uploading the results immediately to an online database, enabling rapid containment of any outbreak.

The development of the device prototype is still in the trial phase and it requires 30-60 minutes to get results using ASFAST. The technology was said to be applicable to the detection of other diseases.