Ahead of Print -Safety of Recombinant VSV–Ebola Virus Vaccine Vector in Pigs - Volume 21, Number 4—April 2015 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

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Ahead of Print -Safety of Recombinant VSV–Ebola Virus Vaccine Vector in Pigs - Volume 21, Number 4—April 2015 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

Volume 21, Number 4—April 2015

Dispatch

Safety of Recombinant VSV–Ebola Virus Vaccine Vector in Pigs

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• The Study
• Conclusions
• Suggested Citation

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Emmie de Wit, Andrea Marzi, Trenton Bushmaker, Doug Brining1, Dana Scott, Juergen A. Richt, Thomas W. Geisbert, and Heinz Feldmann 

Author affiliations: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Hamilton, Montana, USA (E. de Wit, A. Marzi, T. Bushmaker, D. Brining, D. Scott, H. Feldmann); Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Manhattan, Kansas, USA (J.A. Richt); University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA (T.W. Geisbert);University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (H. Feldmann)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

The ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa has resulted in fast-track development of vaccine candidates. We tested a vesicular stomatitis virus vector expressing Ebola virus glycoprotein for safety in pigs. Inoculation did not cause disease and vaccine virus shedding was minimal, which indicated that the vaccine virus does not pose a risk of dissemination in pigs.

The current Ebola virus (EBOV) outbreak in West Africa has shown the need for an effective vaccine against this virus. As a result, clinical trials to test several vaccine candidates have been expedited (1) in hopes of contributing to containment of the outbreak. One of these vaccine candidates is based on a recombinant vesiculovirus vector species, vesicular stomatitis Indiana virus (here designated and more commonly known as VSV) expressing the EBOV strain Mayinga glycoprotein (here designated rVSV∆G/EBOVGP; formerly designated VSV∆G/ZEBOVGP) (2–4). This vaccine was highly efficacious in preexposure and postexposure studies in nonhuman primates after a single injection (5). In addition, the vaccine has been shown to be safe in simian HIV–infected rhesus macaques (6) and was not neurovirulent after intrathalamic inoculation into macaques (7).

However, because VSV is a World Organisation for Animal Health–listed pathogen (8), concerns might arise with regard to spillover of the vaccine vector to livestock when this vaccine is used on a larger scale in humans. To evaluate the safety of rVSV∆G/EBOVGP in a relevant livestock species, we inoculated pigs with this vaccine and compared clinical signs and virus replication with those of a recombinant wild-type VSV vector (rVSVwt) described previously (3).

Dr. de Wit is a research fellow in the Disease Modeling and Transmission Section of the Laboratory of Virology, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, Montana. Her research interests are pathogenesis and transmission of zoonotic emerging viruses.

Acknowledgments

We thank David Stallknecht, Lisa Kercher, and the Rocky Mountain Veterinary Branch for providing helpful advice.

This study was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health.

References

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Table

• Table. Findings for pigs inoculated with rVSVwt and rVSV∆G/EBOVGP

Suggested citation for this article: de Wit E, Marzi A, Bushmaker T, Brining D, Scott D, Richt JA, et al. Safety of recombinant VSV–Ebola virus vaccine vector in pigs. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015 Apr [date cited]. http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2104.142012

DOI: 10.3201/eid2104.142012

1Current affiliation: University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.