An animal model to study human infectious diseases
should accurately reproduce the various aspects of disease.
Domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) are closely
related to humans in terms of anatomy, genetics and
physiology, and represent an excellent animal model to
study various microbial infectious diseases. Indeed,
experiments in pigs are much more likely to be predictive
of therapeutic treatments in humans than experiments
in rodents. In this review, we highlight the
numerous advantages of the pig model for infectious
disease research and vaccine development and document
a few examples of human microbial infectious
diseases for which the use of pigs as animal models
has contributed to the acquisition of new knowledge to
improve both animal and human health.