African Swine Fever roadmap:
Control Strategies
Roadmap for the development of control strategies for ASF
Download ASF Control Strategy Roadmap15
Host-pathogen-environment interactions
Host-pathogen-environment interactions
Research Question
- ASF virus cause acute – chronic infection reflecting the virulence of the virus strain or the host (genetics). Understanding the different responses could shed light on the protective mechanisms and virulence factors
Research Gaps and Challenges
- Investigate host and virus mechanisms causing virus attenuation
- Determine patterns of activation of immunologically relevant host genes, particularly at early stages after infection
- Study the pathogenesis of ASFV isolates with different virulence in diverse susceptible host in order to identify, and ultimately subvert the early events of infection
- Investigate the role of specific genomic determinant(s) in disease outcome
- Determine global expression profiles of host cells infected with ASFV.
- Once the host cell response is understood at a cellular level, this information could also be gathered and applied to the response in the
host - Implement Viral Transcriptomic Studies
Solution Routes
- The use of attenuated strains obtained by genetic manipulation or by adaptation to different cell substrates provides a valuable tool to study mechanisms of attenuation. Comparative analysis of host and virus behaviour using parental virulent versus their derived attenuated strains, particularly focusing the early stages of the infection, would provide critical data regarding the host and virus mechanisms causing virus attenuation
- Genomic wide either on the RNA or Protein level data for ASFV gene expression would be relatively easy with current technologies and could provide data to determine differences in ASFV gene expression in vitro and in vivo in different hosts
State Of the Art
- African swine fever virus infection of domestic swine results in several forms of the disease, ranging from highly lethal acute manifestations to subclinical depending on contributing viral and host factors. In Africa, highly virulent viruses produce a broad range of responses in populations of pigs in endemic areas. At the herd or population level, infections may result in 50-100% of the pigs seroconverting, but showing no signs of disease, with variable proportion of the pigs dying of acute ASF. Unlike domestic swine, wild African suids infected with ASFV are generally asymptomatic with low viraemia titres
Projects
What activities are planned or underway?
Africa's Long Depression: The Growth and Debt Crises of 1975-2000
Planned Completion date 01/03/2027
Participating Country(s):
United Kingdom
Unlocking potential: developing innovative adolescent screening visits for health promotion, prevention and treatment in low-resource settings
Planned Completion date 01/01/2028
Participating Country(s):
United Kingdom