Effective vaccines for enteric diseases are necessary to reduce both direct losses caused by mortality and indirect production costs, for example lower feed efficiency, reduced growth rates and weight variation. Moreover, restrictions on antibiotic use force us to look for new control measures, especially in the European Community where animal welfare laws make the control of diseases transmitted by the faecal-oral route more difficult.

Coming from the UK, where currently we do not have swine fever, we would certainly not want the widespread use of swine fever vaccines throughout Europe, which would potentially mask the disease and its spread.

The German state of North Rhine Westphalia has stepped up its measures to fight Classical Swine Fever (CSF) as the disease continues to be present in wild boar.

Scientists at Kansas University say that vaccination studies, aimed at creating a Porcine Circovirus-2 vaccine, seem to look promising.