African swine fever (ASF) continues to pose a significant threat to pig farming and wildlife globally, with effective vaccines still largely unavailable. The HORIZON Europe funded ASFaVIP project aims to advance the leading vaccine candidate(s) through the European Medicines Agency's licensing process and optimize vaccination strategies for wild boar and domestic pigs, considering the disease dynamics within the European Union. To achieve this, research is necessary into wild boar ecology under ASF influence and their behaviour in response to various baiting/immunization strategies. Currently, the project consortium has a strong focus on partners with capacities to provide animal trials with the final vaccine candidates and field work is focused on affected regions in Germany; however, expanding research to include additional regions with varying wild boar habitats, population densities, and ASF control strategies would better reflect the broader regional context. In this context, Latvia (BIOR) will be included in the ongoing project activities, especially work package 7. Latvia was among the first countries in the EU that were hit by ASF in 2014 and the disease is still present. Latvia is therefore best-placed to provide background for studies into wild boar biology under the influence of ASF. Moreover, Latvia has different scenarios where baiting strategies could be tested. In brief, the following objectives would be added: bait deployment trials in an ASF-endemic region with low wild boar densitiy, and field studies to improve our understanding of population dynamics and ASF epidemiology in longer-term and endemic situations.

The global emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses and the subsequent adaptation to wild birds has resulted in record mortality of wild birds and poultry and is developing into an enzootic threat for wildlife, poultry and human health in Europe. The ongoing evolution of HPAI viruses is expanding their geographical distribution and host range. To deal with this global problem, KAPPA-FLU brings together top experts from Europe, North America and Asia. The overall objective of KAPPA-FLU is the characterization of key viral, host-related and environmental factors that determine the maintenance and the long-distance spread of HPAI viruses in wild birds, with the goal of improving capacities for risk-based surveillance, prevention and control of HPAI in poultry and wildlife, and its potential impact on human health. KAPPA-FLU will follow three research themes. Theme A (Disease ecology) provides a deep understanding of the population dynamics of HPAI viruses in migratory waterbirds and spill-over hosts, both resident wildlife and poultry, through risk-based surveillance strategies, and accounting for the impact of climate change. Theme B (Virology) studies the evolution of HPAI viruses in wild birds and poultry and the resulting increasing risk to humans and other mammals. Based on the above results, theme C (Agro-ecosystem risk) identifies and models prevention and control strategies (including vaccination) using machine learning algorithms. Actors from different sectors of society will, through the Multi-Actor Panel, play key roles in translating results into policy and practice. In this way, KAPPA-FLU will make stepwise advances in knowledge of the population dynamics and evolution of HPAI, and thus contribute to a sustainable poultry production system and improved public health.

The enormous health and economic impacts of epidemics and pandemics has become one of the defining public policy and health issues in Europe and throughout the world. A new urgency is required to understand, rapidly respond to, and vaccinate against viruses with epidemic and pandemic potential. The major challenge for the modern vaccines is the induction of long-term protective immunity, as clearly demonstrated by fast waning of protection for current COVID-19 vaccines. VICI-DISEASE is an ambitious project which combines existing cutting-edge expertise in a tried and tested consortium, with new advances in this critical field. The consortium’s main objective is to develop a vaccine candidate portfolio and perform a clinical proof-of-concept study, to enable stocks of vaccine candidates ready for further development (Phase 2&3) in case of pandemic outbreaks. The primary candidate will be Nipah virus (NiV), a high-mortality viral disease with no vaccines or treatments. Our vaccine is based on NiV G protein displayed on capsid Virus Like Particle (cVLP), enabled by adapting template processes from our recent COVID-19 vaccine (currently in Phase 3), and expected to provide best-in-class longevity as shown for COVID-19. The VICI-DISEASE consortium’s objective is to develop and perform a clinical proof-of-concept study for • a highly effective (>90% protection), • long-term protective (>2 years), • NiV virus cVLP vaccine, • by adapting template processes established for our COVID-19 vaccine (currently in Phase 3), • within 48 months in a Phase 1/2a clinical study, • to help protect medical workers and the public from future NiV and Hendra virus outbreaks, • and establish a pipeline of novel filovirus vaccines through pre-clinical proof-of-concept studies. We address the call topic by improving pandemic preparedness and response through development of a NiV vaccine to Ph1/2 and two filovirus vaccines to pre-clinical proof-of-concept.

African swine fever (ASF) has recently transformed from an exotic disease to a panzootic threat to domestic and wild suids world-wide. Europe is currently facing different scenarios with front and point introductions, affected wild boar and domestic pig populations, epidemic and endemic situations. While our traditional prevention and control strategies work well with industrial pig farms, we quickly reach our limits when we have to control the disease in the abundant wild boar population or in regions with a majority of backyard farms. To turn the tide and to safeguard animal health, vaccines, especially oral vaccines for wild boar, could be the missing tool. There has been considerable progress in vaccine development and while we should continue to look for alternative approaches, we must now also dare to test the promising candidates beyond simple proof-of-concept studies. Only in this way can we generate the data base for benefit-risk analysis of whether and how current generation vaccines could be employed. Along these lines, this project sets out to test the vaccine candidate "ASFV-G-ΔI177L" in safety and efficacy tests after oral and intramuscular application as prescribed by international guidelines. This vaccine candidate has shown safety and very good protection under laboratory conditions and has been applied in the field in Vietnam. As a backup option, other promising candidates, “ASFV-G-ΔMGF” and “ASFV-G-Δ9GL/UK, will be tested in initial comparative trials. Accompanying the prescribed tests, our interdisciplinary consortium will characterize the protective immune responses, target the optimization of oral immunization and model tailored vaccination strategies. The data body generated in this project is crucial for benefit-risk-assessments at the level of all authorities entrusted with licensure and deployment of ASF vaccines and for this reason, relevant stakeholders will be involved from the start to guarantee full exploitation of our data.