Barasona García-Arévalo, José ÁngelKosowska, AleksandraGonzález-García, GabrielaDíaz De Frutos, MartaFranzoni, GiuliaNicolussi, PaolaPorras, NestorSánchez-Segovia, MónicaDe Antonio-Gómez, DanielRueda, PalomaBarroso Arévalo, Sandra2026-04-102026-04-102026Barasona, J. A., Kosowska, A., González-García, G., Díaz-Frutos, M., Franzoni, G., Nicolussi, P., … Barroso-Arévalo, S. (2026). A dual-gene-deleted ASFV Lv17/WB/Rie1-ΔCD candidate administered orally to wild boar confers DIVA-compatible protection against virulent challenge. Veterinary Quarterly, 46(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/01652176.2026.26495730165-217610.1080/01652176.2026.2649573https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/134642Justificación de autores: Jose A. Barasona: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Visualization, Writing – original draft; Aleksandra Kosowska: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft; Gabriela González-García: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing; Marta Díaz-Frutos: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – review & editing; Giulia Franzoni: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing; Paola Nicolussi: Investigation, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing; Nestor Porras: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing; Mónica Sánchez-Segovia: Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing; Daniel De Antonio-Gómez: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing; Paloma Rueda: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing; Sandra Barroso-Arévalo: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft. Contratos/Becas: José Ángel Barasona: contrato Ramón y Cajal RYC2022-038060-I Marta Sánchez Segovia: Beca Doctoral CT2/25African swine fever (ASF) continues to expand worldwide. Recent detection in wild boar in Spain highlights the urgent need for effective control tools, with oral vaccination as a key priority. Following previous evaluation of the attenuated Lv17/WB/Rie1 strain, we assess an improved derivative, Lv17/WB/Rie1-ΔCD, lacking EP402R (CD2v) and EP153R, replaced by GFP to abrogate haemadsorption and enable Differentiating-Infected-from-Vaccinated-Animals (DIVA) diagnostics. Vaccinated animals received either a single high dose (10 TCID₅₀) or a prime and re-exposure regimen (10 TCID₅₀ plus a 10 TCID₅₀). Animals were challenged intramuscularly with the virulent Armenia07 genotype II strain. The ΔCD vaccine was well tolerated, inducing only transient low-grade fever. Prime-re-exposure vaccination induced earlier seroconversion (mean 12 ± 4 dpv) and sterilizing immunity in 5/6 animals in the high dose group. Overall protection reached 90%, while all unvaccinated controls died within 7 days. Quantitative PCR revealed >10³-fold reductions in viral genome copies in blood and tissues versus controls. DIVA ELISA reliably distinguished vaccine-induced antibodies from infection-derived responses. These findings identify Lv17/WB/Rie1-ΔCD as a safer oral ASFV vaccine candidate, addressing concerns raised with the parental Lv17/WB/Rie1 by increasing attenuation and supporting multi-gene deletion strategies. Further studies on safety, transmission, genetic stability, and environmental behaviour are required before large-scale field trials.engAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/journal article1875-5941https://doi.org/10.1080/01652176.2026.264957341888028https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41888028/open access636.09African swine fever virusDIVA propertiesLive attenuated vaccineOral vaccinationWild boarVeterinaria3109.11 Virología