An alternate delivery system improves vaccine performance against foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV)

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) causes vesicular disease of cloven-hoofed animals with severe agricultural and economic implications. One of the most highly infectious and contagious livestock pathogens known, the disease spreads rapidly in naive populations making it critical to have rapidly acting vaccines. Needle inoculation of killed virus vaccine is an efficient method of swiftly vaccinating large numbers of animals, either in eradication efforts or in outbreak situations in disease free countries, although, to be efficient, this requires utilizing the same needle with multiple animals. Here we present studies using a needle free system for vaccination with killed virus vaccine, FMDV strain O1 Manisa, as a rapid and consistent delivery platform. Cattle were vaccinated using a commercially available vaccine formulation at the manufacturer's recommended dose as well as four and sixteen fold less antigen load per dose. Animals were challenged intradermalingually (IDL) with live, virulent virus, homologous strain O1 Manisa, at various times following vaccination. All non-vaccinated control cattle exhibited clinical disease, including fever, viremia and lesions, specifically vesicle formation. Cattle vaccinated with the 1/16x and 1/4x doses using the needle free device were protected when challenged at both 7 and 28 days after vaccination. These data suggest that effective protection against disease can be achieved with 1/16 of the recommended vaccine dose when delivered using the needle free, intradermal delivery system, indicating the current vaccine stockpile that can be extended by many fold using this system. Published by Elsevier Ltd.