Vaccination with recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara protects against measles virus infection in the mouse and cotton rat model

Modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) has been used as an experimental vaccine vector against respiratory infections. We have tested the safety and immunogenicity of a recombinant virus expressing the hemagglutinin of measles virus (MVA-MV-H) using the mouse model of measles virus induced encephalitis and the cotton rat model for respiratory infection. MVA-MV-H proved to induce a TH1 response, neutralizing antibodies and conferred protection against both encephalitis and lung infection. The cotton rat is very sensitive to infection with replication competent vaccinia virus. In these animals MVA-MV-H proved to be a very well tolerated vaccine. However, the efficiency in the presence of MV specific maternal antibodies was low (even using a prime-boost strategy) and therefore might have to be improved. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.