Pig Disease Powerhouse

“Another Global Pandemic Is Spreading” proclaims the headline from a recent article in Wired magazine. The story is about African Swine Fever virus and its spread in Europe, Asia, and now the Americas. One of the ASF experts cited is Dr. Bob Rowland, who joined our college in March 2020 to head the Department of Pathobiology.

The article quotes Dr. Rowland on the ease with which ASF has spread around the world, landing on the doorstep of the United States in the Dominican Republic: “Where do people come from to vacation in the Caribbean? Name a country in the world: Eastern Europe, China, Africa, all areas that have ASF.”

ASF, a Global Threat

Dr. Rowland is the most recent arrival to the Illinois powerhouse of internationally recognized researchers tackling the most pernicious pig viruses facing the global pork industry. Our pathobiology department now has five faculty members focused on swine viral infections and vaccines. The department also boasts faculty members who study related issues such as vaccines for bacterial disease in pigs and people, vaccines for viral disease in poultry and people, and preparedness for foreign animal disease outbreaks.

The relevance of their research stretches far beyond whether there will be bacon for your next cheeseburger.

ASF poses no risk to human health, but it is deadly to hogs and there is currently no vaccine available. An outbreak in the US would immediately shutdown any and all exportation of pork and transportation of swine in a designated geographic area. Some studies suggest an ASF outbreak could cost the US economy as much as $50 billion. When ASF broke in China in 2019, the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork, that country lost approximately half of its swine herds.

What’s more, Illinois is No. 4 in hog production in the United States, and an ASF outbreak would cause a devastating ripple effect throughout the state’s economy.

And adding to the fearsomeness of ASF virus is its extreme hardiness. It survives in cooked and cured meat for years. It could enter the U.S. on the shoe of an airline traveler coming from an ASF-endemic country, in a discarded ham sandwich, or even via the fur, bedding, or feces of one of the 1 million stray dogs imported into the U.S. every year.

Given the enormity of the threat posed by an ASF outbreak, I’d like to highlight the researchers on our pig virus dream team and their contributions to the field. Many of them have focused their careers on porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), the most economically important pig virus circulating in the U.S. since the late 1980s. All of them are doing important work to safeguard the nation’s pork industry and to advance knowledge of viruses and vaccines.