The Lapinized Chinese Strain Vaccine Against Classical Swine Fever Virus: A Retrospective Review Spanning Half A Century

Classical swine fever (CSF), a list A disease of Office International des Epizooties, is caused by classical swine fever virus (CSFV) belonging to the Flaviviridae family. The well-known lapinized Chinese strain of CSFV, also known as C-strain, was developed in China in the mid-1950s. In the past half a century, the vaccine has been proved to be safe and immunogenic in pigs of essentially any age. It is of high efficacy, providing immunized animals with broad-spectrum, sometimes lifelong, protection, which is contributed by both cell-mediated immunity and humoral immunity, against essentially all genotypes or subgenotypes of the virus. The maternal antibodies derived from immunized sows can confer solid protection of their offspring from disease; however, they have been proved to inhibit the successful active immunization of C-strain vaccine. The complete genomes of C-strain and dozens of established or field strains have been sequenced and annotated. Recentlu, the reverse gentics system of C-strain has been developed, resulting in several C-strain-derived candidate marker vaccines. Many countries manage to control or even eradicate CSF with the aid of mass vaccination with C-strain. In spite of these efforts, the eradication of the disease worldwide remains a big challenge and needs to go a long way, and provably still resorts to genetically modified C-strain vaccine. The authors present an overview of the characteristics of the vaccine, which has stood the test of half a century.