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Just months after the swine flu pandemic panicked the world, varying strains of the Ebola virus have been discovered in pigs, and they may be jumping between swine and humans effortlessly.

Researchers, who reported their findings in the journal Science, are concerned that pigs are providing a melting pot where the virus could mutate into something deadlier. And they warned that the emergence of Ebola in the human food chain is “of serious concern.”

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The infections were discovered among pigs in the Philippines after tissue samples were taken to identify the source of unusually severe respiratory infections which were plaguing swine across the country. The discovery came as a surprise to researchers, since until now the Ebola-Reston (REBOV) virus had only been found in humans and other primates.

Perhaps more frightening, Ebola was also detected in farm workers who tend to the infected pigs. And it’s likely that the virus had been transmitted from swine to humans, and vice versa.

The good news is that so far the virus appears to pose no risk to humans, and none of the infected farm workers have shown signs of illness. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stress that this current strain of the virus is not of the same variety as the one which caused outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever in the early 90’s, and at present there is no serious cause for concern.

Even so, researchers writing in Science warn that “there is concern that its passage through swine may allow REBOV to diverge and shift its potential for pathogenicity.” In other words, the fact that the virus is being so readily exchanged between species could increase its chance of mutating, and this family of viruses has been associated with fatal diseases in humans before. Furthermore, it’s still unknown what effect an infection from the current strain would have on a human with a compromised immune system.

The Ebola virus was first identified in 1989 in the United States from cynomolgus monkeys which had been shipped in from the Philippines. Highly contagious outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever– a potentially fatal disease which causes heavy internal bleeding– ocurred in the U.S. in 1990 and 1996, and in Italy in 1992. Because those original outbreaks had also stemmed from the Philippines, the fact that the virus has now been discovered in pigs there raises alarm.

Although finding the virus in the human food chain is worth monitoring closely, the World Health Organization says that pork is still safe to eat, provided it is prepared and cooked properly. So far there’s no direct evidence that the virus has been transmitted through ingestion of an infected animal.

Source: BBC NEWS, Mongabay

Image Credit: Laurel Fan on Flickr under a Creative Commons License

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