The cost of pig vaccination with TSOL18 as a control measure
for T. solium is difficult to determine because vaccine production
has yet to be scaled up to an industrial level. There is nothing
inherently expensive about the vaccine technology involved with
producing TSOL18. The technology has not been patented and it
is being provided by the University of Melbourne at no cost so as
to maximise the vaccine’s application for the good of poor people
in developing countries. Apart from the production costs in themselves,
application of vaccination would not be likely to require the
level of staff and other inputs required by either public education
or taeniasis treatment approaches to T. solium control.
6.5. Pig vaccination plus chemotherapy
We have seen from the discussion above that a combination of
TSOL18 vaccination of pigs together with a single oxfendazole
treatment of pigs led to the complete elimination of T. solium transmission
to pigs in a recent field trial (Assana et al., 2010). Combined
use of the two measures overcame the limitations of both
measures applied individually. This strategy appears to have the
greatest potential of all the measures tested to date to reduce T.
solium transmission.