Researchers have developed a vaccine that is proving effective against African Swine Fever.
The work has been done by United States Department of Agriculture scientists at the Plum Island, New York, site for the Agriculture Research Service.
They are ready to begin trials in commercial herds.
The early results of the trial look promising as all pigs in remained essentially free of clinical signs of the disease after being exposed to the complete virus.
Unvaccinated pigs in the groups also remained free of clinical signs, indicating that the vaccine does not increase the risk of other animals contracting the virus through shedding.
This new vaccine was developed upon the discovery that deletion of a previously uncharacterised viral gene produces complete attenuation in swine.
The vaccine has been trialled in a clinical environment, with all animals inoculated intramuscularly with the gene-deleted virus remaining clinically normal during the 28-day observational period.
The new vaccine was described in the published paper as "one of the few experimental vaccine candidate virus strains reported to be able to induce protection against the ASFv Georgia isolate, and the first vaccine capable of inducing sterile immunity against the current ASFv strain responsible for recent outbreaks."
