LONDON, U.K. (Reuters) — British scientists have developed a new vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease that is safer and easier to manufacture, an advance they believe will increase production capacity and reduce costs.
The new vaccine does not require live virus in its production, an important consideration because FMD is extremely infectious and vaccine facilities handling virus samples are difficult to secure.
“It spreads like wild fire,” said David Stuart, a professor of biology at the University of Oxford, who led the research.
For example, a 2007 outbreak of FMD in southeastern England was traced to a nearby vaccine site. The same facility is home to some of the researchers behind the new vaccine.
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In contrast to standard FMD vaccines, the new product is made from synthetic empty protein shells containing no infectious viral gen-ome, scientists said in the journal PLOS Pathogens March 27.
This means the vaccine can be produced without expensive biosecurity and does not need to be kept refrigerated.
“One of the big advantages is that since it is not derived from live virus, the production facility requires no special containment,” Stuart said.
“One could imagine local plants being set up in large parts of the world where foot-and-mouth is endemic and where it still remains a huge problem.”
Three to four billion doses of FMD vaccine are administered worldwide every year, but there are shortages in many parts of Asia and Africa, where the disease is a serious problem.
Current standard vaccines are based on 50-year-old technology, although U.S. biotech company GenVec last year won U.S. approval for a new one.
The synthetic British vaccine has been tested in small-scale cattle trials and found to be effective.
