Photo: VCG

China has made breakthroughs on the environmental release and clinical trials for a domestically developed vaccine against the African swine fever, according to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences on Wednesday.

Clinical trials for the vaccine were initiated by researchers in bases in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Central China's Henan Province and Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region at the beginning of April. A total of 3,000 hogs were involved in the experiment.

Clinical trials are still underway, and so far, the immunity pig groups have displayed no adverse reaction to the drug, and autopsy results show no pathological change after they were injected with the vaccine, and there has been no toxic emission of the vaccine either. The fatality rate of the immunity group was under 1 percent.

Besides, no obvious difference was found between the immunity group and the control group.

Media reported on Wednesday that the academy will continue to accelerate the development of the vaccine in line with the relevant regulations and evaluations.

African swine fever, which first broke out in 2018, has put great pressure on China's pork supply. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, total pork output in 2019 dropped 21.3 percent year-on-year, falling by 42.55 million tons.

Global Times