You are excused if “Pig Progress” or “The Pig Site” are not journals on your regular reading list. So, you 
may not have heard about the massive recent culling of swine in Russia in response to outbreaks of ASF (African swine fever). ASF is a severe hemorrhagic disease associated with mortality up to 100%, and quite difficult to contain. It is caused by a pox-like dsDNA virus which only affects swine not humans. Transmission is via the soft-bodied Ornithodorus ticks which is associated with relapsing fever (Borrelia 
recurrentis) in humans.
Obviously, ASF virus is a pathogen of great importance in veterinary medicine. Less known is its history as a biowarfare agent. In 1977 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the CIA supplied anti-Castro activists who deliberately introduced ASF into Cuba [1]. This resulted in a massive ASF outbreak requiring the slaughter of some 500000 pigs, basically the entire pig population of the island [2]. Details of this second “Bay of Pigs” operation are still shrouded in mystery; chances are we will never get to the bottom of it but it caused the first outbreak of ASF in the Western Hemisphere.
There is as yet no vaccine against the ASF virus but passive transfer of antibodies confers protection. Immunization with an attenuated strain seems promising.[3]
NB: Just in case you were wondering: There is no reported CIA connection to the current ASF outbreaks.
References
[1] http://www.maebrussell.com/Health/CIA%20Pig%20Virus.html
[2] W Blum. Killing Hope. http://books.google.com/books?id=-IbQvd13uToC&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=ASF+virus+and+CIA+Cuba&source=bl&ots=cIr3GfBghD&sig=ojrEh7LIhbKLmz1WfFR7P9CP874&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gOwOVJ2XLI6myATuzoDoAw&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
[3] LK Dixon. Dev Biol (Basel). 2013;135:147. doi: 10.1159/000170936. Epub 2013 May 14. – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23689892
