WOAH releases guidelines for African Swine Fever vaccine field trials and monitoring

On June 25‑29 2026 the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) published a new set of guidelines titled “Guidelines for African Swine Fever (ASF) Vaccines: Field Evaluation and Post‑Vaccination Monitoring”. Developed with experts from the Pirbright Institute and City University of Hong Kong, the document gives veterinary services and competent authorities a practical framework for assessing vaccine efficacy and safety under real‑world conditions.

The core recommendations call for randomized controlled field trials before any national vaccination programme, establishment of pharmacovigilance and post‑vaccination monitoring systems, and integration of genomic surveillance to detect reversion to virulence. The guidance also provides tools such as sample‑size calculators, case‑definition templates and a clinical scoring system for pigs.

The guidance arrives as live‑attenuated ASF vaccines have recently been approved in several Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, and ASF continues to threaten pig production across Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. WOAH stresses that vaccination must be combined with biosecurity, surveillance and movement controls, and will host a webinar on June 30 to discuss implementation.