The Vacdiva project studies three different vaccine candi- dates. When do you expect any of them to be ready for market? “When we are totally sure that our vaccines are safe. We prefer not to offer the EU a vaccine with 60%, 70% or 75% protection. We aim for 100%, totally safe. This is why we do long-term in vivo experi- ments, to be sure of the safety and cross-protection, and it is going to take us another two years. We are in the second year of the Vacdi- va project, and the project’s duration is four years. I hope to be able to send the prototypes to vaccine company MSD in two more years. “Safety is very important with any vaccine, but that is true in par- ticular with ASF. Because when focusing on the short term you don’t really check if there is active virus residues, in for example the lymph nodes or in any organs… You will always have to worry that there might be another chronic situation. I have lived so close to chronic and carrier animals that I am not going to create a chronic vaccine. That’s a promise.”


Why also collaborate with partners from outside Europe? “We also included two partners from China, because we wanted to check if our vaccines would work with the ASF virus that is cir- culating in China. “We are also interested in studying African strains, which is why the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is part of our group. They are preparing experimental semi-natural settings for bush pigs and phacochoerus [warthogs, VtB.]. These animals are the producers of the virus, because they keep the virus and spread the virus to domestic animals, other warthogs and other wildlife. So they are the reservoir; the real core of ASF is in Kenya. We decided that it would be fantastic to have one of our proto- types evaluated in these animals. If it is working, we are going to have a beautiful opportunity to eradicate ASF not only in affected countries in Europe or in Asia, but most importantly in Africa too. That is why we have these partners in our project.”


Do you have the feeling that now ASF is being taken seriously? “I have the feeling that the Europeans in general still don’t pay a lot of attention to this disease. One reason for that is that they don’t re- ally know the disease. It is funny to listen to people from Europe saying that the problem is only human, that we are the ones who transport the virus, which in some cases is true. But some have a very idyllic knowledge of wild boar and their actions or how resist- ant the ASF virus is. Only when they talk to the Italians, the Portu- guese or the Spanish, do they realise that that is a mistake.”


The Vacdiva project


The EU-funded Vacdiva project has been set up to develop three safe and effective pilot vaccines for wild boar and do- mestic pigs that are ready for registration. It will also validate “Diva” tests and develop surveillance and vaccination strate- gies. In order to achieve that, field trials will be conducted in Lithuania and Kenya as well – testing vaccination strategies in bush pigs and wild boar. Epidemiological modelling of world- wide scenarios will be offered in a portfolio of services to help animal health authorities control and eradicate the disease. Partners in the project hail from Europe and beyond. Apart from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and INIA, a long list of European national reference laboratories are included, as well as several prominent research organisations. In addi- tion, four non-EU institutes are involved, including ILRI in Ken- ya, the Chinese institutes IAS-CAAS and CAHEC, as well as Russia’s ARRIAH. Two companies are participating in the project: MSD Animal Health and Ingenasa, a Spanish diagnostics company. Total funding for the project is € 10 million. (www.vacdiva.eu)


▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 37, No. 2, 2021 29


PHOTO: SUAT-VISAVET


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