Humans Dying of Pig Disease a Concern
By Margie Mason, AP Medical Writer
Based
on the state of many of the hog farms in Iowa, this issue hits pretty
close to home. I hope we are able to examine the situation very closely
so we are able to prevent the same thing from happening here – if
that's even possible. It's enough to make you want to become a
vegetarian!
Experts
on a strep germ that's sickening people and pigs in China are baffled
by reports of 37 farmers suddenly falling ill, bleeding under the skin
and dying — all previously unheard of with the disease.
While
not uncommon in pigs, Streptococcus suis is seldom seen in people and
never dozens of cases all at once — raising bigger questions about
whether the germ has mixed with some other bacteria or virus.
“Something
is different,” Marcelo Gottschalk, one of the world's leading experts
on the disease, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“We are worried and we wonder what's happening. We would like to have the strain to identify.”
Gottschalk
works in the world's only reference laboratory for Streptococcus suis
at the University of Montreal in Canada and says no one in China has
contacted him for help since the outbreak was reported last month.
So few
people have studied this disease, he's unsure how the Chinese have been
able to identify it and what type of vaccine they plan to use since
immunizations typically are not effective. Chinese state media have
reported that enough vaccine for 350,000 pigs has already been sent to
Sichuan province from a company in southern Guangdong province and that
enough doses for 10 million swine will be shipped later….
The infected farmers who handled or butchered sick pigs have experienced nausea, fever, vomiting and bleeding under the skin.
Thomas
Alexander, retired deputy director of the University of Cambridge's
School of Veterinary Medicine, was a pioneer in studying this
particular strep germ. He said the bacteria is commonly found in the
tonsils of healthy swine in different parts of the world. However, it sometimes becomes pathogenic when too many pigs are crammed together in unsanitary conditions.
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