Effective vaccines against Salmonella Typhi, a major cause of febrile illness in tropical regions, can have a significant effect as a disease control measure. Earlier work has shown that immunization with either of two Salmonella Typhi vaccines, licensed Ty21a or candidate M01ZH09, did not provide full immunity in a controlled human infection model. Here, we describe the human humoral immune re...

Dog rabies control relies principally on the mass immunization of dogs in order to achieve population immunity levels sufficient to inhibit rabies transmission. In Africa, such high levels of population immunity are rarely achieved due to a number of reasons. Oral immunization has been shown to be an effective means of inducing high levels of immunity in fox populations in several European coun...

Background Two oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) are currently pre-qualified by WHO: Dukoral® and Shanchol. Both are oral killed whole-cell (WC) vaccines that provide sustained protection of >50% for at least two years in endemic populations, induce an immune response relatively quickly (7-10 days after the 2 dose) and have a good safety profile. Shanchol has demonstrated longer term protection – 65...

Vaccination is one of the most effective methods available to prevent infectious diseases. Mucosa, which are exposed to heavy loads of commensal and pathogenic microorganisms, are one of the first areas where infections are established, and therefore have frontline status in immunity, making mucosa ideal sites for vaccine application. Moreover, vaccination through the mucosal immune system coul...

Newcastle disease (ND) is a highly contagious disease of chickens causing significant economic losses worldwide. Due to limitations in the efficacy against currently circulating ND viruses, existing vaccination strategies require improvements, and incorporating immunomodulatory cytokines with existing vaccines might be a novel approach. Here, we investigated the systemic and mucosal immunomodul...

Only a small number of oral vaccines are available for routine immunizations despite a significant research effort and a number of obvious advantages over parenteral vaccination. The major roadblock in the development of oral vaccines has been mostly attributed to a lack of ability to specifically target antigen to the mucosal immune system of the gastrointestinal tract. This commentary examine...

The susceptibility of suckling mice to oral infection with several different Vibrio cholerae was determined. Mice up to 10 days of age were uniformly susceptible to oral infection with 10(8) colony-forming units of virulent organisms. Age-dependent resistance occurred thereafter to a maximum at about 15 days of age. The efficacy of selected vaccines was compared by oral challenge of 8-day-old, ...

Plant-based oral vaccines are a promising emergent technology that could help alleviate disease burden worldwide by providing a low-cost, heat-stable, oral alternative to parenterally administered commercial vaccines. Here, we describe high-level accumulation of the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) at a mean concentration of 0.51%TSP in maize T1 seeds using an improved version of the globuli...

lmmunocontraception technology appears to have viable application in wildlife damage management. However, administration of these vaccines is presently performed by syringe injection or remote delivery by darts or bio-bullets. In order for immunocontraception to be successful for broad scale application to free-roaming animals, the vaccine must be delivered in an oral form. Recent advances in m...