The Pirbright Institute has granted MSD Animal Health (known as Merck Animal Health in the U.S.) an exclusive commercial license for a new vaccine to protect livestock against several serotypes of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus. Offering greater stability than current FMD vaccines, it’s less reliant on a cold chain during distribution which is hugely beneficial in regions where the disease is endemic, such as large parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Source: Veterinary Practice, September 2, 2019. Link. “We have been working to achieve something close to the holy grail of vaccines. Instead of traditional methods of vaccine development using infectious virus as its basis, our team synthetically created empty protein shells to imitate the protein coat that forms the strong outer layer of the virus,” says David Stuart, professor in Structural Biology at the University of Oxford in England.
INSIGHTS: Non-endemic regions can also benefit. The protection provided would eliminate mass culling from an outbreak. Plus, this new method of making and stabilizing vaccines might also be used to fight other viruses from the same family, including polio.