New research into swine virus transmission shows African swine fever can survive much longer than originally thought BrownfieldAgNews reports.
Dr. Dave Pyburn with the National Pork Board says while looking at holding times as a potential mitigant, the initial study focused on Seneca virus because very few labs could work with ASF.
“The reason we thought Seneca would be a good one is because Seneca is a very hardy virus. It’s known to survive very well in the environment.”
The results showed that Seneca could survive in feed for around 50 days.
“And surprisingly to us, it has shown that African swine fever lasts even longer than Seneca Valley. It’s even hardier than Seneca at least in a feed environment.”
At temperatures of 54 degrees, Pyburn says the average half-life of ASF in soybean meal is around 125 days.
“And even in organic soybean meal, and I can’t explain this, but in organic soybean meal it was even longer 168 days.”