DefinePK

Abstract

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a primarily communicable disease of cloven footed animal (buffalo, cattle). It causes high economic losses. Vaccination is the potential and mandatory step for prevention and control of FMD virus in field. The Central Laboratory for Evaluation of Veterinary Biologics (CLEVB) and is the only organization in EGYPT that authorized for the quality control of FMD vaccines either local or imported, CLEVB uses calves for evaluation process, but it faced many problems as; they often carry antibodies against FMD serotypes as EGYPT is an endemic country, lack of some Biosafety measures in animal isolators and its price was doubled at last three years, that’s why we looked for an alternative model to the original host. In this current study Guinea Pigs (G. pigs) were used as an alternative model for evaluation of FMD vaccines. As it’s cheap, easily handled, well secured and free from FMD antibodies. The last five released local FMD vaccine batches were inoculated with 0.5 ml S/C in G. pigs, Sera samples were collected after 28 days according to evaluation protocol, SNT and ELISA were carried out. Comparisons between results of both animals were done. It was found that the antibody titer for G. pigs were protective and less than those of cattle by one log. So it is recommended to use G. pigs instead of cattle for evaluation of FMD vaccine in CLEVB.