The South Korean government will begin research next month to develop a vaccine for African swine fever(ASF).

The Rural Development Administration(RDA) announced on Tuesday that it will conduct research on the ASF virus jointly with the International Livestock Research Institute's regional office in Vietnam. 

The research will start next month and continue until 2021 in the Southeast Asian nation, as the proper facilities to carry out such work exist there.

Researchers hope to discover how the virus enters pig cells as well as immune-related reactions and the core genes that affect the infection.

There is at present no vaccine or known cure for ASF. Though the disease is not harmful to humans, the fatality rate is close to 100 percent for pigs.

An RDA official said that the research was planned before the outbreak of ASF was confirmed in South Korea last week.