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11 December 2002Success at Long Last: Development of a Safe Synthetic Vaccine for Foot-and Mouth Disease by United Biomedical, Inc. (UBI)UBI Press Release, 9 December 2002Scientists have been trying to develop a safe synthetic vaccine for Foot-and-Mouth disease for more than 20 years. Foot-and-Mouth Disease is an extremely infectious disease of cattle, sheep, and swine. Outbreaks have caused recent devastating losses in the U.K., Taiwan, and Argentina. The virus remains a constant threat throughout much of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America and the market for vaccines exceeds US$500 million. North America and other FMD-free regions fear both accidental introduction and intentional introduction through bioterrorism (1). Current vaccines are produced from killed viruses and present biohazard risks both in manufacture and use. Most attempts to produce a safer vaccine have focused on reproducing by chemical synthesis a small subunit of the virus that is responsible for evoking antibodies that inactivate the virus. However, up until now these efforts have resulted in synthetic vaccines that either were not protective in livestock, or that required doses too large to be economically feasible. United Biomedical, Inc. (UBI) of Hauppauge NY, along with its subsidiary UBI Asia, has been working on this problem since 1997 with an in-house team headed by Dr. Chang Yi Wang, and international collaborators at the USDA Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the Animal Technology Institute Taiwan, the National Institute of Animal Health Taiwan, and commercial animal health companies. UBI has successfully developed a synthetic Foot-and-Mouth Disease vaccine for swine using its unique UBITh® synthetic peptide technology. The synthetic vaccine has been designed to confront a broad array of pandemic FMD viruses from serotype O and can be readily re-designed for potency against the other six serotypes of FMD virus. The UBI vaccine for FMD virus has protected over 200 swine from experimental infection during laboratory vaccine trials. UBI has recently reported on one of these studies in the journal Vaccine. In this publication, “Effective synthetic peptide vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease in swine” by CY Wang, TY Chang, AM Walfield, et al. (Vaccine, 2002; 20: 2603-2610) 20 out of 21 peptide-immunized pigs were protected from infection. The vaccine was effective at small doses in formulations that can be readily manufactured at low cost, comparable to those of the killed virus vaccines. Field and regional trials have recently been completed for the UBI FMD vaccine as part of the procedure to receive official registrations by national regulatory agencies. The company is now perfecting other formulations of its synthetic vaccine for potency and efficacy in cattle. UBI expects that its synthetic FMD vaccine will encourage wider use of vaccination for control of FMD due to the vaccine’s advantages: 1) as a completely safe chemically defined product and, 2) as a marker vaccine whose immunogenic footprint can be readily distinguished from the immune responses that result from FMD virus infection. The company also produces a series of synthetic-peptide based diagnostic tests for FMD that work particularly well as a system together with its vaccines. The UBI diagnostic kits detect infected animals and distinguish them from vaccinated animals. An unprecedented relaxation of the guidelines that restrict the export of vaccinated animals was issued by the Office International des Epizooties earlier this year, in response to the new technical developments in FMD control. The new rules are expected to result in more widespread use of FMD vaccines and diagnostics. The UBI peptide-based vaccine/diagnostic system will be particularly attractive to FMD-free countries for defensive serosurveillance and for contingency plans for emergency vaccination in the event of an outbreak. Contact: Ms. Francine Volz
References1. Elsner, A. (2002). U.S. Agriculture Vulnerable to Biological Attack. Reuters, 20 November 2002. (View article).
Related articles and links provided by the Editor of www.land-care.org.uk
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Irvine, W. J. (2002). Editorial - UBI FMD Vaccine Advance. Land-Care.
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