Current State of Global African Swine Fever Vaccine Development

Dear Colleagues,

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the etiological agent of African swine fever (ASF), a disease affecting both wild boar and domestic pigs. An outbreak in the Caucasus in 2007 started its spread across Russia and Eastern Europe, currently affecting Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia; an outbreak detected in Belgium in 2018 is threatening the French border and produced the first case detected in wild boar in Germany during 2020. Importantly, in August 2018, the first ASFV outbreak was reported in China, one of the most important pork-producing countries in the world; the virus has since spread all over the country and is currently affecting neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Korea and the Philippines. An outbreak was also declared in India during the current year. The situation is economically detrimental, and a serious imbalance could soon manifest in the global food chain; consequently, ASFV now represents one of the most important concerns for society, swine exploitation and the food industry worldwide. 

The virulence varies among the different ASFV strains, ranging from the acute infections with 100% mortality produced by highly virulent strains, to chronic infections presenting low or no mortality induced by attenuated strains. It is noteworthy that these different levels of virulence usually reflect changes and rearrangements in the viral genome. Moreover, both naturally attenuated strains and in-lab genetically modified virulence-suppressed strains, confer some degrees of protection against virulent challenge. However, the safety concerns, genomic stability and scaling up of the vaccine candidates still impair their industrial production. 

The molecular mechanisms leading to virulence are of great importance for understanding viral pathogenesis, being a direct component in the rational design of vaccines. In this regard, a key element differentiating attenuated from virulent strains is the different ability to control host IFN-I production, and most probably, no efficient and safe vaccines against ASF will be developed without a more complete understanding of the virus–host interaction, specifically, of the viral mechanisms used to evade the host’s innate immune response.

Dr. Yolanda Revilla
Dr. Daniel Pérez-Núñez
Guest Editors

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• ASFV
• immune response
• vaccines
• molecular mechanisms