Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Novel vaccination approaches against equine alphavirus encephalitides.
- Journal:
- Vaccine
- Year:
- 2014
- Authors:
- Carossino, Mariano et al.
- Affiliation:
- Instituto de Virologí
- Species:
- horse
Plain-English summary
Researchers are looking for better vaccines to protect horses from diseases caused by certain viruses known as equine alphaviruses, which can lead to serious brain infections. The current vaccines are made from inactivated viruses, but they don't provide long-lasting protection and can be risky to produce. Other types of vaccines have been tried, but they can still cause illness in horses and even humans. New vaccine strategies, like using harmless parts of the virus or modified viruses, are being explored and show promise for preventing these infections. Overall, the development of these new vaccines could greatly benefit both horses and humans by reducing the risk of these diseases.
Abstract
The current production of inactivated vaccines for the prevention of equine alphavirus encephalitides caused by Eastern, Western and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis viruses (EEEV, WEEV, VEEV) involves the manipulation of large quantities of infectious viral particles under biosafety level 3 containment laboratories with the potential risk of transmission to the operators. Moreover, these vaccines are not capable of inducing a long-lasting immunity. Modified live vaccines, which were also attempted, maintain residual virulence and neurotropism, causing disease in both horses and humans. Therefore, the production of an efficacious second generation vaccine which could be used in the prevention of alphavirus infection without the need to manipulate infectious viral particles under high biocontainment conditions could be of great benefit for the worldwide horse industry. Furthermore, equine alphaviruses are considered as biological threat agents. Subunit, chimeric, gene-deleted live mutants, DNA and adenovirus-vectored alphavirus vaccines have been evaluated; such approaches are reviewed in this work. Climate changes, together with modifications in bird and vector ecology, are leading to the arise of emerging pathogens in new geographical locations, and these zoonotic New World arboviruses are gaining concern. Novel vaccine development does show a promising future for prevention of these infections in both horses and humans.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24295803/