African swine fever: one hundred years later

This brief report pays tribute to Robert Eustace Montgomery (1880–1932) whose name is associated with the discovery of African swine fever (ASF). A hundred years ago, he published a major report on study of new highly dangerous disease carried out in 1900–1917 in the East Africa. The infection fundamentals have been established and described – the etiological, immunological  and nosological uniqueness  of the infection, fatal susceptibility of domestic  pigs, clinical sings and pathomorphology,  viral etiology, natural reservoir and source of the infection, survival of the virus outside the body, many specific epizootological aspects. Taking into account current high publication activity it has been concluded that there is a large body of multi-faceted  research focused on African swine fever. Gap analysis carried out by the large team of the European researchers and experts revealed the most challenging aspects – wild boars, ASF survival and transmission, biosecurity and surveillance. In addition to the gaps mentioned in these conclusions and recommendations there are serious gaps in African swine fever immunology, namely in protective immunity mechanisms, virus-macrophage interaction, in vitro virus phenotypic  signs correlating with its virulence, etc. Evidently, it is hardly possible to expect development of anti-ASF vaccines and particularly the vaccines capable of preventing and effectively protecting against ASF epizooty according to the general understanding without addressing these issues.

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