A new vaccine is designed to combat not only the types of salmonella bacteria that make pigs and turkeys sick but also help reduce food-borne diseases that can make people ill.
Vaccines on the market now generally offer protection from one type of salmonella. However, that can leave animals vulnerable to infections from other types of the pathogen.
It can also leave unaffected “commensal” organisms, which animals carry but do not adversely affect their hosts. The animals then can pass the commensal bacteria along to people when they go to market or when their manure is used to fertilizer crops that are not properly washed or cooked before eating.
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Developing vaccines that can target several types of salmonella is a huge challenge, Shawn Bearson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Ames, Iowa said in a news release.
“But another challenge is that the vaccines need to reduce salmonella types that don’t cause disease in pigs but do cause food-borne disease in humans.”
Bearson and his research team, along with Brad Bearson, who works at the USDA’s Agroecosystems Management Research Unit in Ames, created a new vaccine that works on both commensal and disease-causing salmonella.
Experiments showed the vaccine protected pigs from two types of salmonella: Typhimurium and Choleraesuis. As well, it protected turkeys from Typhimurium and Heidelberg, a multi-resistant salmonella responsible for a 2011 incident that led to one of the largest meat recalls in U.S. history.
Typhimurium is a major culprit behind food poisoning cases in humans and is also a common commensal salmonella in pigs, poultry and cattle, said Bearson.
Choleraesuis causes life-threatening disease in pigs and is a major issue for pork producers worldwide.
A patent has been filed but it’s not known how long it will take to get the vaccine to commercialization.
