Maternal immunity and African swine fever virus: understanding the limits of passive protection.

African swine fever (ASF) is an often-fatal disease impacting domestic and wild pigs world-wide. Understanding the role of maternal immunity in ASF pathogenesis is crucial for effective control. This study characterized kinetics and protective potential of maternal immunity against ASF virus (ASFV) in neonatal piglets.

Development and validation of the PrePain questionnaire for predicting pain.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties and construct validity of the PrePain questionnaire in both the general population and a long-term pain population. The PrePain questionnaire is an 11-item self-administered tool that assesses current pain intensity, long-term pain history, and attitudes, emotions, and behaviors related to pain using a visual analog scale (VAS). This non-randomized observational study included 200 participants: 100 individuals with long-term pain and 100 without.

Benefit risk considerations for African swine fever virus live attenuated vaccines.

In response to the recent publication on safety concerns related to “ASFV-G-∆I177L” by van den Born et al. (2025), we emphasize the need for a thorough, context-specific risk assessment before drawing conclusions about the general field use of the ASFV-G-∆I177L vaccine strain. While valid safety concerns were raised, historical precedents highlight that potential risks, including reversion or recombination, can be managed effectively within structured vaccination strategies.