March 05, 2018
Safety Analysis of Leishmania Vaccine Used in a Randomized Canine Vaccine/Immunotherapy Trial
In Leishmania infantum–endemic countries, controlling infection within dogs, the domestic reservoir, is critical to public health. There is a need for safe vaccines that prevent canine progression with disease and transmission to others. Protective vaccination against Leishmania requires mounting a strong, inflammatory, Type 1 response. Three commercially available canine vaccines on the global veterinary market use saponin or inflammatory antigen components (Letifend) as a strong pro-inflammatory adjuvant. There is very little information detailing safety of saponin as an adjuvant in field trials. Safety analyses for the use of vaccine as an immunotherapeutic in asymptomatically infected animals are completely lacking. Leishmania infantum, the causative agent of canine leishmaniasis, is enzootic within U.S. hunting hounds. We assessed the safety of LeishTec® after use in dogs from two different clinical states: 1) without clinical signs and tested negative on polymerase chain reaction and serology or 2) without clinical signs and positive for at least one Leishmania diagnostic test. Vaccine safety was assessed after all three vaccinations to quantify the number and severity of adverse events. Vaccinated animals had an adverse event rate of 3.09%, whereas placebo animals had 0.68%. Receiving vaccine was correlated with the occurrence of mild, site-specific, reactions. Occurrence of severe adverse events was not associated with having received vaccine. Infected, asymptomatic animals did not have a higher rate of adverse events. Use of vaccination is, therefore, likely to be safe in infected, asymptomatic animals.
Read the full article in The American of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
More from CNAS
-
Why There Are No Game-Changing Weapons for Ukraine
Commentary
Germany has become the second-biggest contributor of military aid to Ukraine after the United States, but you wouldn’t know it by following the debate in Berlin. In a replay o...
By Franz-Stefan Gady
-
To Avoid AI Catastrophes, We Must Think Smaller
Commentary
These incidents are not theoretical, nor are they projections of long-term dangers; rather, these AI tools are already presenting tangible threats to individual health and wel...
By Josh Wallin
-
For Replicator to Work, the Pentagon Needs to Directly Help with Production
Commentary
Today’s innovation ecosystem alone cannot achieve the necessary production scale, especially for the less commercially viable classes of systems relevant in the Indo-Pacific....
By Andrew Metrick
-
Sharper: Campaigning and the National Defense Strategy
Commentary
The United States faces the unprecedented challenge of simultaneously deterring large-scale conventional aggression by two nuclear-armed powers while also managing other threa...
By Philip Sheers, Molly Campbell & Anna Pederson
