Chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are complex mixtures of polychlorinated n-alkanes. Although they are classified as persistent organic pollutants, some of them are still actively manufactured. Current evidence indicates that dietary intake is the primary contributor to the body burden of CPs, underscoring the importance of controlling CP contamination in food. Nevertheless, the complexity of CPs poses significant challenges for accurate analysis, resulting in considerable data gaps. This impedes the development of appropriate policy measures to ensure consumer safety. To tackle the issue, the project has identified two critical objectives: (i) addressing analytical challenges related to CP measurements in food, and (ii) filling relevant data gaps concerning the occurrence and behaviour of CPs in foods. The first objective will involve providing a dependable toolbox that simplifies the implementation of instrumental analytical workflows and eases data post-processing and quantification. In contrast, the second objective will involve investigating the occurrence of very short-, short-, medium- and long-chain CPs in high-risk foods (i.e., fish, fish products, and highly processed foods) in Europe, including comprehensive exploration of CP transformation products and subsequent risk assessment. The project\'s outcomes will be presented in 4 peer-reviewed publications and 3 international scientific conferences.

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.

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.