Improve tools and strategies for the prevention and control of classical swine fever

Eradication of CSF in domestic pigs has been achieved in several areas within the EU. However, despite intensive efforts on national as well as on international level, the complete eradication of CSF in Europe has proved to be elusive. Additionally, the disease is still endemic in some new EU member states (Romania and Bulgaria) and sporadic outbreaks still occur in free areas. The latter is most likely due to the persistence of the virus in wild boar populations, which acts as a reservoir for the virus. Furthermore, population dynamics in back yard pigs is not fully understood, as this type of pig holdings is new to the European Community and hasn't been fully investigated. As a consequence, there is a strong need for improvement of knowledge and intervention strategies for back yard pigs.

Currently a non-vaccination policy exists in the EU. However, due to the problems in wild boar and in domestic pigs in some member states derogations of this non-vaccination policy and some field trials are ongoing. In case of oral vaccinations in wild boar, the live C-strain vaccine is used, since only live vaccines can be used for oral vaccination. The disadvantage of this vaccine is that no differentiation between vaccinated and infected animals can be made. In Romania and Bulgaria some herds are vaccinated with the registered marker vaccine based on a baculovirus produced E2 subunit vaccine. As this use of the E2 marker vaccine is new, some very valuable information on the field use of this vaccine could be made available from these countries. Nevertheless, some experimental studies demonstrated that the licensed E2-subunit marker vaccines are not efficacious enough for use as emergency vaccines in domestic pigs, and in addition can not be used in bait vaccines for oral immunization of wild boar. Controlling CSFV outbreaks in domestic pigs as well as in wild boar and back yard herds would be significantly enhanced, if a safe and efficient live marker vaccine would be available with its accompanying DIVA assays.