Long Before Covid-19,
What was Happening All Over China?
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
destroyed the lungs.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused fevers.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused multisystemic inflammation.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused a fatal cytokine storm.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused vasculitis.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
damages the heart.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
damages the kidneys.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
damages the liver.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affects the spleen.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affects the tonsils.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affects the lymph nodes.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused hypoxia.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affected macrophages.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused immune suppression.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
resulted in multiple secondary infections.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affected the natural killer cells.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affected the dendritic cells.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affected the epithelial cells.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
affected the CD4 cells.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused rashes.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused petechiae.
Long before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that
caused an elevation of IL-6,
IL-10, TNF and IP-10.
Long
before Covid-19 there was a disease all over China that caused thrombosis.
Long
before Covid-19, that disease, which caused the loss of half of China’s four
hundred million pigs, was African Swine Fever, the multisystemic
inflammatory disease that strikes fear in the heart of every agricultural
researcher and farmer all over the world. If SARS-CoV-2 had never been
identified as the cause of Covid-19, African Swine Fever would have been the
painfully obvious leading suspect. Is it still possible that African Swine
Fever is a co-infection or cofactor in Covid-19? Why have scientists not looked
for known and novel strains of African Swine Fever in Covid-19 patients? And
given that millions of pigs throughout China had African Swine Fever with all the immunological destruction it
causes, why hasn’t China considered the possibility that SARS-Cov-2
is just one of the many coinfections of immunologically-challenged pigs with
African Swine Fever in Wuhan, Hubei, and the rest of China?
Anyone
who says that people cannot become infected with African Swine Fever has only a
partial knowledge of the science. They are not aware of all the public health
warnings about the evolving nature of zoonotic diseases. In 2009, scientists
discovered novel sequences related to African Swine Fever in human serum and
sewage. In their abstract they concluded, “The family Asfarviridae contains only a single virus
species, African swine fever virus (ASFV). ASFV is a viral agent with
significant economic impact due to its devastating effects on populations of
domesticated pigs during outbreaks but has not been reported to infect humans.
We report here the discovery of novel viral sequences in human serum and sewage
which are clearly related to the asfarvirus family but highly divergent from
ASFV. Detection of these sequences suggests that greater genetic diversity may
exist among asfarviruses than previously thought and raises the possibility
that human infection by asfarviruses may occur.” (Source)
Two
recent questionable experiments involving Covid-19 and pigs really constitute
“beating around the bush.” One experiment in Germany unsuccessfully tried to infect pigs
with SARS-Cov-2 and another one in India projected that pigs could
not be infected based on a computer model.
Research that does not “beat around the bush” would simply test pigs for
SARS-Cov-19. The first papers that came out about SARS-Cov-2 noted that
pigs have ACE2 receptors, so it will not come as a surprise to at least some
scientists if it turns out that pigs are intermediate vectors of SARS-Cov-2. (Source #1, Source #2) One study
concluded, “Due to the large number of infected people often with high
virus loads, SARS-CoV-2 could potentially spill over in other species including
pigs and this should be monitored closely.” (Source)
But the
bigger issue with enormous public health consequences is the question of
whether African Swine Fever virus is an unidentified cofactor or coinfection of
SARS-Cov-2 in Covid-19. The more alarming question is whether SARS-Cov-2 is a
secondary infection and the mysterious nature of the emerging epidemic is a
mystery caused by a major paradigm mistake which is the result of blaming the
wrong pathogen for our international medical crisis. Science goes down the
wrong path all the time and courageously corrects itself. Could African Swine fever
be the Black Swan of Covid-19? Are we due for a midcourse correction in our
understanding of Covid-19?
If
China will not test the pigs in Wuhan and Hubei for SARS-Cov-2, then perhaps
scientists in Italy and the USA can step in. The area most affected by COVID-19
in northern Italy is densely populated by domestic pigs. And then there is the
curious issue of the pork production facilities in the USA that are hotspots
for COVID-19. Doesn’t prudence demand that pigs in those facilities be tested
both for SARS-Cov-2 and novel strains of African Swine Fever?
Recent
research has identified twenty-four
respiratory coinfections in Covid-19 patients. Isn’t it time to make
the search for coinfections and cofactors deeper and broader? Should Covid-19
patients be tested with something like the ViroChip for every known
and possibly novel infection? Of course, it is possible that African Swine
Fever has nothing to do with Covid-19. But in this evolving disaster, no stone
should be left unturned. One thing is clear: Anyone who says that what happens
pathologically in African Swine Fever and Covid-19 is not similar is just not
paying attention.
