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African swine fever vaccine questions need to be answered
The chief veterinarian for the National Pork Producers Council suggests several questions need to be answered before a vaccine for African swine fever becomes commercially available.
Speaking to Brownfield at last week’s World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Dr. Liz Wagstrom says USDA’s Agricultural Research Service is working on some very promising technology.
“You might’ve seen headlines that it was commercialized in Vietnam now, (but) there are several steps they would need to go through to be able to be approved by USDA’s Center for Veterinary Biologics for use in the United States. And then there becomes the ‘what ifs.”
She says among the questions.
“If it does become commercial, would you vaccinate prior to an outbreak? What does that do for trade? Do you put it in a bank so you’d have it in the case of an outbreak? Some of those questions are still very important and need to be answered.”
Vietnam announced earlier this month it had successfully developed an ASF vaccine and aims to be the first country to commercially produce and export it.
