Lack of evidence for long term carriers of African swine fever virus - a systematic review.

Lack of evidence for long term carriers of African swine fever virus - a systematic review. Virus Res. 2019 Aug 17;:197725 Authors: Ståhl K, Sternberg-Lewerin S, Blome S, Viltrop A, Penrith ML, Chenais E Abstract African swine fever (ASF) was first described in 1921 as a highly fatal and contagious disease which caused severe outbreaks among settlers' pigs in British East Africa. Since then the disease has expanded its geographical distribution and is currently present in large parts of Africa, Europe and Asia and considered a global threat. Although ASF is typically associated with very high case fatality rates, a certain proportion of infected animals will recover from the infection and survive. Early on it was speculated that such survivors may act as carriers of the virus, and the importance of such carries for disease persistence and spread has since then almost become an established truth. However, the scientific basis for such a role of carriers may be questioned. With this in mind, the objective of this study was to review the available literature in a systematic way and to evaluate the available scientific evidence. The selection of publications for the review was based on a database search, followed by a stepwise screening process in order to exclude duplicates and non-relevant publications based on pre-defined exclusion criteria. By this process the number of publications finally included was reduced from the 3664 hits id...
Source: Virus Research - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Virus Res Source Type: research