African swine fever virus: can current research lead to vaccine development?

Globally, African swine fever has had a major economic impact, yet it was f irst described only in the 1920s. Several factors, including the presence o f the virus in wildlife reservoirs, its persistence in pigs which recover f rom the disease, its stability in pork products, and lack of a vaccine, con tribute to the difficulties in controlling this devastating disease. Some c ountries have even resorted to killing their entire pig population to rid t hemselves of the disease. The recently completed sequence of the entire vir us genome produced many surprises and boosted research efforts. The details of how the virus enters and replicates within the host's cells, the deviou s strategies it uses to evade host defence systems, which of the virus's ma ny proteins are important in causing an effective host immune response, and the protective immune mechanisms involved, are now beginning to be underst ood. This information will help in the design of novel disease control stra tegies.