Inactivated Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV-1) Vaccine for Cattle

Background

Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) is an economically important viral disease of cattle and prevalent world-wide and in India. Infections with BVDV cause significant economic losses to the dairy farmers/industry in India due to reproductive disease (abortion, congenital malformation, infertility and birth of weak calves), respiratory disease, gastrointestinal disease, losses in milk yield and mucosal disease (MD)-associated mortality. In India, although all the three causal agents of BVD, BVDV-1, BVDV-2 and HoBi-like pestivirus (HoBiPeV) have been reported, BVDV-1 is predominantly prevalent. To prevent infections with BVDV and to have more calves per cow, vaccination of breeding cows against BVD is advisable, as it enhances the herd level immunity, reduces clinical disease, prevents fetal infection, and generation of persistently infected calves, which are the main sources of BVDV transmission. However, BVD vaccine is not yet available in India against the circulating BVDV field strains. Although commercial inactivated BVD vaccines based on exotic strains are available abroad, their protective efficacy and coverage against BVDV strains circulating in India is uncertain. Moreover, development and use of BVD vaccine having broad coverage against local circulating strains is beneficial. Hence, there is a pressing need of an indigenously developed BVD vaccine which can provide protection against the predominantly prevalent circulating strains (BVDV-1) in India.

Technology Details

The NIHSAD inactivated BVD vaccine for cattle is based on a whole virus (BVDV-1) water-in-oil vaccine using a field isolate (BVDV-1) of Indian origin and cultured on MDBK cells. The vaccine is intended for prevention and control of BVDV infections in cattle that can reduce the economic losses of dairy farmers/industry. This is the first indigenously developed BVD vaccine in India and has passed the sterility, safety, immunogenicity and efficacy testing in experimental cattle under laboratory conditions, and safety and immunogenicity testing in field cattle. The vaccine is inoculated via intramuscular route in 5ml dose per animal, followed by a booster at day 28 of primary vaccination. It provides protective immunity against BVDV-1 in cattle from day 35 of vaccination till 12 months, under experimental conditions and covers all the divergent strains of BVDV-1 currently circulating in India. It provided robust protective immunity, with neutralizing antibody titers reaching 1:128 and maintained for up to 12 months post-vaccination and the fetal protective antibody titer of 1:512 was sustained up to 5 months post vaccination. Additionally, it provides partial protective immune response against infections with BVDV-2 and HoBiPeV,

indicating a broader antigenic coverage against circulating strains. The vaccine remained immunogenic for up to 8 months when stored at 4°C. The NIHSAD BVD vaccine has advantage over the imported commercial BVD vaccines, as it has been developed based on the genetic and antigenic data (20 years) of circulating BVDV strains in India. The vaccine will help in prevention and control of BVD in dairy cattle, especially in breeding cows and bulls, contributing to the enhanced cattle productivity and improving the livelihood of dairy farmers.