United Kingdom-based Pirbright Institute announced it was able to develop a vaccine against the African Swine Fever (ASF).
The institute disclosed that 100 percent of the immunized pigs through the new vaccine “survived a lethal dose of ASF virus.”
“The Pirbright team has developed a vectored vaccine, which uses a non-harmful virus (the vector) to deliver eight strategically selected genes from the ASF virus (ASFV) genome into pig cells. Once inside the cell, the genes produce viral proteins which primes the pig immune cells to respond to an ASF infection,” Pirbright Institute said.
“All pigs that were immunized with the vaccine were protected from severe disease after challenged with an otherwise fatal strain of ASFV, although some clinical signs of (the) disease did develop,” it added.
DA Secretary William Dar believes this could be a game changer in the swine industry. The Department of Agriculture (DA) has expressed willingness to join the Pirbright Institute’s clinical trial for the search of an ASF vaccine, and “will now buy” if the trial goes well.
An estimated 286,000 or 2.2 percent of the total hog population in the country was depopulated to control the said virus. – Report from Cleizl Pardilla
