ILRI joins new EU-funded research consortium to develop African swine fever vaccine

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has partnered with a consortium of 16 institutions from Europe and the United States of America to launch a new project aimed at developing a next-generation vaccine against African swine fever, a deadly viral disease that has killed close to 2 million pigs globally since 2021.

The work of the four-year project, New Technologies for African Swine Fever (Vax4ASF), will contribute towards prevention, control and eradication of African swine fever globally.

The project is funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe program and led by HIPRA, a biotechnological pharmaceutical company headquartered in Spain.

The other organizations that form the consortium are:

• Anprogapor, Spain;
• In3Diagnostic, Italy;
• Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungary;
• International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya;
• Interporc, Spain;
• Kansas State University, United States of America;
• King Michael I University of Life Sciences, Romania;
• Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany;
• National Veterinary Research Institute, Poland;
• Pirbright Institute, United Kingdom;
• Prophyl, Romania;
• Sabiotec, Spain;
• Severo Ochoa Centre for Molecular Biology, Spain;
• Swedish Veterinary Agency, Sweden;
• Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, the Netherlands; and
• Zabala Innovation, Spain.

Header photo: Improved pigs on a farm in Hoima District, Uganda (credit: ILRI/Karen Marshall).