Vietnamese Medicinal Plants as Potential Resources to Explore New Anticancer and Anti-inflammation: Established Assays for Pharmacological Tests.

Cancer is one of the most serious health problems in the world, which annually increases in incidence and mortality rates. Among therapies for cancer, chemical treatments are widespread. However, the benefit of these compounds remains limited due to high cytotoxicity, resistances, and non-selectivity. In addition to cancer, inflammation is also a common symptom and usually relates to other diseases such as infection and cancer. Therefore, investigation of new agents for anticancer and anti-inflammation is of high interest. The tropical climate of Vietnam makes it one of the most biodiversity-rich countries in the world, with a wide availability of traditional medicines and herbs for primary healthcare. However, most of utilization of Vietnamese medicinal plants is not evidence-based as few systematic studies of these have been performed. In this chapter, we present established anticancer and anti-inflammation assays for natural extract and compounds from a Vietnamese medicinal plant. In addition, the procedures of extraction, separation, and isolation of this plant are described.

Long-term follow-up of convalescent pigs and their offspring after an outbreak of acute African swine fever in Vietnam.

African swine fever (ASF) is a contagious haemorrhagic disease in pigs and has become endemic in several Vietnam provinces since the first outbreak in 2019. The presence of carriers and the recurrence of disease in the surviving swine herd after an ASF outbreak has not previously been properly evaluated. In this study, pigs naturally infected with an acute form of ASF were allowed to recover from the disease. A serological follow-up was conducted for more than 14 months with 14 convalescent gilts and their offspring. All convalescent animals had long lasting high serum antibody levels without persistent viremia. They also did not excrete virus via nasal discharge post-recovery. These convalescent pigs could partially perform as replacement gilts despite the fact that ASF affected reproductive performance. Here, we confirmed that there were neither the carriers of nor recurrence of disease in the convalescent pigs and their offspring following the outbreak of acute ASF. These findings may facilitate efforts to design a new farming model in ASF endemic provinces in Vietnam where there is a lack of a repopulation strategy due to the limited funding received from the local regulatory authorities.