african swine fever vaccine on the horizon...african swine fever vaccine on the horizon i think...

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262 7 March 2020 | VET RECORD News & Reports [email protected] By Adele Waters A VACCINE to protect pigs against African swine fever (ASF) is likely to be available by 2025 – possibly even within the next two years, at a push. That was the one hopeful message that came out of a discussion about the impact and management of the disease at last week’s Animal Health Investment Europe conference, in London. Linda Dixon, who leads the ASF virus team at the Pirbright Institute, told the audience of vets, scientists, academics, venture capitalists and investors that various scientific centres were currently working on the vaccine. ‘I think there is a very good chance a vaccine will be developed within five years. There are already some promising candidates,’ she told a panel discussion. ‘It’s possible that we could have a vaccine earlier than that – China is investing a lot of money in vaccines and it’s possible that they might push out a vaccine within two or three years. ‘It is just a matter of time,’ she continued. ‘Realistically, there is no reason why we shouldn’t have a vaccine but there has just been a lack of investment in its research. When it was a disease in Africa, there was little interest in it commercially and it’s only since 2018 that we’ve seen a big interest in vaccine development.’ She predicted that the most likely first vaccine on to the market would be a live, attenuated vaccine produced by gene deletion. Nevertheless, she said there were many barriers to overcome – further experiments and more time was needed to take candidates through from experimental stage, to scaling up production, a full safety testing protocol to satisfy regulatory requirements and on to the marketplace. African swine fever vaccine on the horizon I think there is a very good chance a vaccine will be developed within five years She said ASF was a complex virus with 117 genes and scientists did not know a lot about it or how a live attenuated vaccine might behave in the field. And in terms of capacity, she said high- containment facilities were needed to test and produce vaccines but there were few such facilities globally. Up until the development of a vaccine, countries needed to manage the disease conservatively: early awareness of all stakeholders, early detection, good biosecurity, detection at point of entry to countries and safe movement of products. ‘In the meantime we should invest in vaccine development so we have more candidates in the pipeline, should one of the early ones fail. There is also the potential to look at other control tools such as antivirals and immune-resistant pigs,’ she said. The audience learned about the economic cost of the disease. The global production of pork was down 10 per cent last year, and it will be down by around 8 per cent this year. With no solution in place, that decline is likely to continue for a few years beyond 2020, the audience heard. Justin Sherrard, a global strategist in animal protein for Rabobank, said: ‘If you look at the last 50 years, you will not find a single year where there has been a larger decline than what we saw in 2019. It is truly unprecedented.’ While that meant economic advantage for the UK meat export market due to higher pork prices, Sherrard said trade was complicated by three main geopolitical factors: coronavirus and its impact on Chinese production and consumption; the US-China trade war and how US exports will be affected by Chinese demand; and the role of Chinese authorities around managing prices and their impact on global trade and production. He said ASF had many implications and one of them would be the restructuring (more consolidation) of the pork supply chain in China within the next few years. on October 9, 2020 by guest. Protected by copyright. http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ Veterinary Record: first published as 10.1136/vr.m888 on 5 March 2020. Downloaded from

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Page 1: African swine fever vaccine on the horizon...African swine fever vaccine on the horizon I think there is a very good chance a vaccine will be developed within five years She said ASF

262 7 March 2020 | VET RECORD

News & [email protected]

By Adele Waters

A VACCINE to protect pigs against African swine fever (ASF) is likely to be available by 2025 – possibly even within the next two years, at a push.

That was the one hopeful message that came out of a discussion about the impact and management of the disease at last week’s Animal Health Investment Europe conference, in London.

Linda Dixon, who leads the ASF virus team at the Pirbright Institute, told the audience of vets, scientists, academics, venture capitalists and investors that various scientific centres were currently working on the vaccine.

‘I think there is a very good chance a vaccine will be developed within five years. There are already some promising candidates,’ she told a panel discussion. ‘It’s possible that we could have a vaccine earlier than that – China is investing a lot of money in vaccines and it’s possible that they might push out a vaccine within two or three years.

‘It is just a matter of time,’ she continued. ‘Realistically, there is no reason why we shouldn’t have a vaccine but there has just been a lack of investment in its research. When it was a disease in Africa, there was little interest in it commercially and it’s only since 2018 that we’ve seen a big interest in vaccine development.’

She predicted that the most likely first vaccine on to the market would be a live, attenuated vaccine produced by gene deletion.

Nevertheless, she said there were many barriers to overcome – further experiments and more time was needed to take candidates through from experimental stage, to scaling up production, a full safety testing protocol to satisfy regulatory requirements and on to the marketplace.

African swine fever vaccine on the horizon

I think there is a very good chance a vaccine will be developed within five years

She said ASF was a complex virus with 117 genes and scientists did not know a lot about it or how a live attenuated vaccine might behave in the field. And in terms of capacity, she said high-containment facilities were needed to test and produce vaccines but there were few such facilities globally.

Up until the development of a vaccine, countries needed to manage the disease conservatively: early awareness of all stakeholders, early detection, good biosecurity, detection at point of entry to countries and safe movement of products.

‘In the meantime we should invest in vaccine development so we have more candidates in the pipeline, should one of the early ones fail. There is also the potential to look at other control tools such as antivirals and immune-resistant pigs,’ she said.

The audience learned about the economic cost of the disease. The global production of pork was down 10 per cent last year, and it will be down by around 8 per cent

this year. With no solution in place, that decline is likely to continue for a few years beyond 2020, the audience heard.

Justin Sherrard, a global strategist in animal protein for Rabobank, said: ‘If you look at the last 50 years, you will not find a single year where there has been a larger decline than what we saw in 2019. It is truly unprecedented.’

While that meant economic advantage for the UK meat export market due to higher pork prices, Sherrard said trade was complicated by three main geopolitical factors: coronavirus and its impact on Chinese production and consumption; the US-China trade war and how US exports will be affected by Chinese demand; and the role of Chinese authorities around managing prices and their impact on global trade and production.

He said ASF had many implications and one of them would be the restructuring (more consolidation) of the pork supply chain in China within the next few years. ●

262-265 news .indd 262 04/03/2020 19:06

on October 9, 2020 by guest. P

rotected by copyright.http://veterinaryrecord.bm

j.com/

Veterinary R

ecord: first published as 10.1136/vr.m888 on 5 M

arch 2020. Dow

nloaded from