No need to go bananas about “Banana AIDS”

Recently in China, the online community has sparked controversies and has “gone bananas” over “Banana AIDS”. The news has gone viral. People on the internet are worried that it is not safe to eat bananas anymore and that the “disease” has spread all over Southeast Asia. Some of the rumours have gone so far as to say that bananas will soon become extinct, and that you may get AIDS when you eat a banana.

Luckily they are all just rumours and bananas are still safe to eat. The so-called “Banana AIDS” is a common disease, as stated by the experts at the Hainan Academy of Sciences. It is called banana xanthomonas wilt (BXW), often referred to by farmers as “Banana AIDS”. Guangdong and Hainan province bananas have been exposed to this type of disease and have been controlled effectively. Most banana farmers are aware of the disease and know how to make their trees resistant to it. When a banana tree gets infected, they just cut it down. Hopefully the other trees will not get infected.

Other measures are to ensure that the tools you used for an infected tree are not used in a healthy one. Another would be removing the male bud of an infected plant so that it does not attract insects and spread the disease. It is basically preventing the disease from spreading.

So bananas are here to stay and it won’t be extinct any time soon. No need to go bananas over bananas.