Pig empire under infectious threat: risk of African swine fever introduction into the People's Republic of China.

Pig production and pork consumption are very important to the People's Republic of China for both economic and cultural reasons. The incursion and spread of a disease such as African swine fever (ASF), which emerged in Eastern Europe in 2007, could have devastating socioeconomic consequences for both the Chinese and the global pig industry. The Chinese government consequently attributes a very high priority to ASF and is actively seeking to improve its preparedness. This paper discusses different drivers and pathways of potential emergence of ASF in China in light of the country's specificities, including international movements of people, pigs and pig products, swill feeding practices and wild boar populations. It suggests that effective ASF risk management in China will require a comprehensive and integrated approach linking science and policy and will need to involve all relevant stakeholders to develop realistic policies.

Establish and optimization of real-time fluorescent reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification for detection of avian influenza H5 hemagglutinin gene / 病毒学报

H5 subtype avian influenza (AIV-H5) is a major causative agent of animalloimia a rapid and sensitive molecular biological diagnosis is crucial to the control program of AIV-H5. AIV-H5 real-time fluorescent reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (qRT-LAMP) was established by means of heat treatment of the samples. The sensitivity, specificity and repeatability of this method were assessed and the performance of Calcein,SYBR Green I,HNB,SYTO 81 in colorimetric detection was comparatively analyzed to screen the optimum dye. The results showed the sensitivity of this method was 100 times higher than that of standard real-time fluorescent RT-PCR, and the detection limit was one copy of the gene per reaction. This method had no cross-reactivity with other common avian respiratory tract infectious disease-related pathogens such as IBV and NDV. The present study suggested Calcein was the optimum dye. Small-scale tests suggested this method was reliable for survey monitoring of AIV-H5 on the spot, indicating its potential applications in field investigation.