What’s G4 virus? In a new research, from China – which has the largest population of pigs in the world – have identified a “ recently emerged ” strain of influenza virus that is infecting Chinese pigs and that has the potential of triggering a pandemic. Named G4, the swine flu strain has genes similar to those in the virus that caused the 2009 flu pandemic . The scientists identified the virus through surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs that they carried out from 2011 to 2018 in ten provinces of China. During this time, more than 29,000 nasal swabs were collected from slaughtered pigs and over 1,000 swabs or lung tissues were collected from farmed pigs that had signs of respiratory disease.Out of these samples, the researchers isolated 179 swine flu viruses, the majority of which belonged to the newly ident...