Introduction
African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious, fatal, hemorrhagic
disease in pigs. The disease was first discovered in Kenya in 1921
(Montgomery 1921). It then has been found in Europe (Rowlands, Michaud
et al. 2008), China (Zhou, Li et al. 2018), Viet Nam (Le, Jeong et al.
2019), causing significant economic loss. The causative virus is a big,
enveloped, DNA virus belonging to the family Asfaviridae. Based
on the partial sequence of the p72 encoding gene (Bastos, Penrith et al.
2003), 23 genotypes of ASFV have been identified. All of the ASFV
reported in Viet Nam belong to genotype II (Le, Jeong et al. 2019, Nga,
Tran Anh Dao et al. 2020, Tran, Truong et al. 2020). Clinical signs of
ASF vary from peracute to subacute depending on the virus virulence, the
route of infection. The common signs include febrile, anorexia,
inactivity, skin exanthemas (Salguero 2020). Abortion can be seen in
pregnant sows. The morbility and mortality can be up to 85% and 100%,
respectively. However, little is known about neonate piglets infected
with ASFV. This is the first paper reporting neurological signs in
neonate piglets positive to ASFV.