The simplification of current vaccine administration regimes is of crucial interest in order to further sustain and expand the high impact of vaccines for public health. Most vaccines including the vaccine against hepatitis B need several doses to achieve protective immunization. In order to reduce the amount of repetitive injections, depot-based approaches represent a promising strategy. We pr...

The Brucella AMOS PCR assay was previously developed to identify and differentiate specific Brucella species. In this study, an abbreviated Brucella AMOS PCR test was evaluated to determine its accuracy in differentiating Brucella abortus into three categories: field strains, vaccine strain 19 (S19), and vaccine strain RB51/parent strain 2308 (S2308). Two hundred thirty-one isolates were identi...

ONRAB(®) is a recombinant human adenovirus type 5 (HAd5) with the rabies glycoprotein gene incorporated into its genome. ONRAB(®) has been used in Canada as an oral rabies vaccine in target wildlife species such as: red fox (Vulpes vulpes), raccoon (Procyon lotor), and striped skunk (Mepthis mephitis). We evaluated the safety of ONRAB(®) in non-target wildlife species likely to contact the vacc...

There is increasing interest to use oral cholera vaccination as an additional strategy to water and sanitation interventions against endemic and epidemic cholera. There are two internationally-available and WHO-prequalified oral cholera vaccines: an inactivated vaccine containing killed whole-cells of V. cholerae O1 with recombinant cholera toxin B-subunit (WC/rBS) and a bivalent inactivated va...

Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrheal disease among newborns. Plant-based rotavirus vaccines have been developed in recent years and have been proven to be effective in animal models. In the present study, we report a bivalent vaccine candidate expressing rotavirus subunits VP6 and NSP4 fused with the adjuvant subunit B of E. coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LTB) in maize seeds. The R...

Background & Aims: Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough, continues to infect human hosts even in those populations where infants and children are routinely vaccinated. Causes of pertussis epidemiology are not fully identified unless strains of the pathogen are characterized by molecular means. Golbally, Multi Locus Variable Number of Tandem Repeats analysis (MLVA) has pro...

mycoplasma contaminants can be considered important not only for their roles as pathogens but also they may indicate that insufficient care has been taken during vaccine manufacture or quality control. the purpose of this study was to test the poliomyelitis vaccines for mycoplasma by culture and polymerase chain reaction (pcr) methods. during 2008 to 2009, a total of 47 lots of oral poliomyelit...

BACKGROUND The incidence of varicella disease is declining as a result of vaccination, making clinical diagnosis more challenging, particularly for vaccine-modified cases. We conducted a comprehensive evaluation of laboratory tests and specimen types to assess diagnostic performance and determine what role testing can play after skin lesions have resolved. METHODS We enrolled patients with su...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE We evaluated the sensitivity of PCR on oral fluids in detecting influenza virus in vaccinated and non-vaccinated pigs. METHODS Three-week-old influenza-free pigs were divided into three groups: (i) control, non-vaccinated, (ii) vaccinated with a commercial, heterologous vaccine, and (iii) vaccinated with an experimental, homologous vaccine. After vaccination, an influenza...

A multiplex reverse transcription-PCR method was optimized to monitor the duration of excretion of Sabin poliovirus strains in stools of vaccinees following administration of the first dose of the trivalent oral vaccine. The assay detected approximately 1 50% tissue culture infective dose of each poliovirus serotype spiked into cell culture media. Although PCR inhibitors were frequently encount...