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Category: Viruses and Viral Pathogenesis
Vaccine Strategies, Page 1 of 2
< Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/10.1128/9781555816698/9781555816032_Chap27-1.gif /docserver/preview/fulltext/10.1128/9781555816698/9781555816032_Chap27-2.gifAbstract:
Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective methods to control and prevent infectious diseases and has had a major impact on human and animal health over the last century. Commercial vaccines have been developed for just three picornavirus-associated diseases. Two are human afflictions, poliomyelitis and hepatitis A, and the third is foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a major disease of domestic livestock. The antigenic material for use in vaccines is subject to rigorous regulatory controls to minimize unwanted side effects. All current picornavirus vaccines are produced in tissue culture under tightly controlled conditions. The presence of multiple serotypes is obviously a complicating issue for the development and deployment of vaccines. In the early development of FMD vaccines, formaldehyde was used to chemically inactivate the virus. However, the inactivation kinetics in the relatively crude virus suspensions used for vaccine production are not linear, and a small persistent fraction of infectious virus may be detected even after prolonged inactivation times, as was also seen in some early polio vaccines. The culture of hepatitis A virus in vitro proved difficult, and much of the early work that led to the eventual development of a vaccine relied on human volunteer studies or work in New World primates or chimpanzees. Quantitative improvements would be expected to reduce the frequency at which booster immunizations are required and, qualitatively, broadening of the immune response to include cell-mediated responses and secretory immunity is desirable.
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