Florida Pig Farm Poses Riddle
"AIDS victims and pigs stricken with chronic African swine fever have common characteristics, Beldekas said, including fever, abnormally large lymph nodes, skin lesions, immune-related pneumonia, and a reduction of white blood cells. Both diseases can be spread through exposure to infected blood, blood products and semen, Beldekas said, but the animal virus can also be transmitted by infected ticks. Accordingly, they say, the animal virus may somehow be a factor in the transmission of AIDS, which could have spread from infected pigs to humans through tick bites, and then from human to human through sexual contact or direct infection of blood."
