Commercially Available African Swine Fever Vaccine on the Horizon

May 23, 2022

The Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center says, for the first time, we can see the prospects on the horizon for a commercially available African Swine Fever vaccine. African Swine Fever continues to move with new outbreaks confirmed in Indonesia, Bhutan and Thailand, outbreaks in wild boar in Italy and ongoing challenges in the Caribbean.

Dr. Paul Sundberg, the Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center and a member of the Swine Innovation Porc Coordinated African Swine Fever Research Working Group, says one of the biggest research priorities has been vaccine development.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

USDA just reported that there has been further testing of the prototype vaccine that they have been testing in Vietnam in conjunction with a commercial company there. On their tests there has been no reversion of the vaccine virus to wild type virus in causing infection. That's a very important safety test.

There's still a lot of work to be done and there needs to be work in the ability to differentiate vaccine antibodies from wild type antibodies. We want to make sure that, if a pig has come into contact with a wild type, we can tell that from a pig that may have been vaccinated. That's an important distinction and one that needs further work.

I think we're taking steps to go toward a commercialized vaccine in the at least foreseeable future. I don't know what that time line would be but now it looks like we can start to see on the horizon the opportunity for vaccines at least which, at the beginning of this outbreak in 2018 in China, there was no such optimistic look so that's a positive thing.

Source : Farmscape

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.