A specialist in medical microbiology, Tore Midtvedt believes that the African swine fever virus can develop to infect humans, writes the Nationen
African swine fever is a dreaded disease that spreads between pigs. The virus has recently spread to Europe. The highly contagious disease is fatal to pigs, and there is no treatment or vaccine.
A specialist in medical microbiology and professor emeritus at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Tore Midtvedt, tells Nationen that he believes the virus behind the swine fever is so unstable that it can develop to infect humans.
“The swine fever virus seems to be more unstable. Viruses cannot multiply by themselves, it must multiply in the animal it infects. Then there is a mindset that the pig and man are so alike,” he says.
Currently wild boar are among the largest spreaders of swine fever. But the disease can also be spread by insects and birds. Feeding from infected food waste is the main cause of contamination and spreading of infection to new countries and continents.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
