African Swine Fever Vaccines: Development and Application

Dear Colleagues,

African swine fever (ASF) is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease of domestic swine, with mortality rates approaching 100%. Devastating ASF outbreaks and continuing epidemics, starting in the Caucasus region and persisting in the Russian Federation, Europe, China, and other parts of Southeast Asia (2007 to date) highlight its significance. ASF strain Georgia-07 and its derivatives are now endemic in extensive regions of Europe and Asia and are “out of Africa” forever, a situation that poses a grave, if not existential, threat to the swine industry worldwide. Although the current concern is Georgia-07, other emerging ASFV strains may threaten the industry in the indefinite future. ASF’s potential to spread and become endemic in new regions, its rapid and efficient transmission among pigs, and the relative stability of the causative agent ASF virus (ASFV) in the environment all provide significant challenges for disease control. Effective and robust methods, including vaccines for ASF response and recovery, are urgently needed. Despite the continual ASF threat and the fact that the disease was first described by Montgomery in 1921, it is surprising that very few ASF vaccines are available and even existing vaccines require confirmation of their safety and efficacy in the field.

Current data indicate that ASF vaccines could indeed be developed, because pigs surviving acute ASFV infection develop long-term resistance to homologous virus challenge but rarely to heterologous virus challenge. Vaccine development has been hindered by large gaps in knowledge concerning aspects of ASFV infection and immunity, including the following: viral pathogenesis and persistence, viral determinants of virulence and host range, critical host protective responses, the extent of ASFV strain variation in nature and its impact on cross protection, and the ASFV proteins (protective antigens (Pas)) responsible for inducing protective host responses.

Exciting research progress addressing aspects of these knowledge gaps is being made. This Special Issues of Microbiology Research will provide a scientific forum for the presentation and discussion of original research reports, focused topical reviews and opinion articles on these critical vaccine-development and field application questions.

Dr. Daniel L. Rock
Dr. Denis Kolbasov
Guest Editors

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• African swine fever
• vaccines
• virulence
• protection