BarcelonaThe Ministry of Agriculture has launched a new investigation into the origin of African swine fever (ASF) after detecting that the virus inflicting the outbreak in Catalonia doesn’t resemble these at present circulating in neighboring international locations. This leads the Spanish authorities to suspect that it could have originated in a organic containment facility, that is, a laboratory the place analysis on this illness is carried out. The pressure detected in the deceased wild boars is similar to the one which circulated in Georgia in 2007 and matches the one generally used in experimental infections at analysis facilities to guage, for instance, the effectiveness of vaccines at present being developed to stop an infection. Now, after receiving the European Union (EU) laboratory report on Friday with the sequencing outcomes of the virus that precipitated the outbreak, the Ministry has knowledgeable the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard of the want to analyze why the virus is so just like the one which circulated in Georgia in 2007. For its half, the Catalan authorities has additionally requested the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police) to analyze the sequencing of the virus in parallel with the work being carried out by the Ministry.
“Viruses, under natural conditions, when they spread through infection cycles in animals, undergo changes in their genome to some extent. The fact that a virus similar to the one that circulated in Georgia has been found does not, therefore, rule out the possibility that its origin could be in a biological containment facility,” the ministry argued in a assertion. Furthermore, the European Union report suggests “the possibility that the origin of the virus is not in animals or animal products,” which till now had been the main speculation.
The Government requires “caution”
According to the outcomes of this EU sequencing, all viruses at present circulating in member states belong to genetic teams 2-28 and to not genetic group 29, which corresponds to the virus inflicting the outbreak in Collserola and is similar to genetic group 1 that circulated in Georgia in 2007. Regarding the chance that the virus might have emerged, the Minister of Agriculture, Òscar Ordeig, said that the report is not conclusive, referred to as for “caution,” and urged folks to keep away from drawing hasty conclusions: “We’ll let the scientists do their work; they’ll have every new development as soon as it happens, without filters or cover-ups.”
On the chance that the virus might have emerged from the Animal Health Research Centre (IRTA-CReSA), which has been studying the virus for two decades. And provided that it is positioned close to the place the first contaminated animals have been discovered, the regional minister mentioned that the authorities “is neither ruling anything out nor confirming anything.” This week, the head of the heart’s High Biocontainment Unit, Xavier Abad, defined to ARA that they’ve analyzed all the actions taken relating to this virus over the final three months and “no incidents have been detected,” however he additionally acknowledged that “zero risk does not exist.”