Vaccines for Orf Virus

The continuing occurrence of Orf in the ovine and caprine herds all over the world emphasizes the need to develop novel vaccines with improved properties. Creative Biolabs has been developing new and efficient vaccines for orf virus for many years and can provide quality vaccine design services to customers around the world.

Orf Virus

The Orf virus (ORFV) is a prototype species of the Parapoxvirus genus that causes contagious ecthyma (CE) in sheep and goats. The disease is also known as Orf, contagious pustular dermatitis, infectious labial dermatitis, scabby mouth, and sore mouth. It is distributed worldwide and is prevalent in most sheep and/or goat-farming countries and is characterized by highly infectious and proliferative lesions, mainly on the lips, tongue, and around the nostrils, but the infection can spread to other non-wooly areas, including the legs, feet, and udders.

Vaccines for Orf Virus

In recent years, reports of serious outbreaks of ORFs have gradually increased. In addition, a mild form of disease has been described in wild ruminants and humans, characterized by self-limiting painful pustular lesions on the hands and fingers. Since 1981, several live attenuated ORFV vaccines have been used worldwide and have formed major preventive measures to prevent contagious ecthyma in sheep and goats.

Live Attenuated Vaccines

The first vaccine for contagious ecthyma was developed at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at Sonora, Tex in the 1930s. Vaccinated sheep recover faster in disease, thereby reducing the damage caused by the disease. Current vaccines do not provide long-term protection, so it is recommended to vaccinate each year. Scab formation after vaccination is desirable because it is an indirect indication of successful vaccination, and the absence of scar formation at the site of the challenge is an indirect assessment of protective immunity to vaccination. The vaccine for the virulent strain of orf virus is prepared from scabs collected from the sputum of the active disease surrounding the mouth and the nostrils of goats vaccinated with goat-derived CE vaccine. Because CE had the largest vaccine-to-challenge scab formation ratio, it can be used to develop vaccines against the orf virus. The vaccine containing a caprine strain of contagious ecthyma virus used in goats appeared to provide the characteristics required for an effective vaccine, including good scab production and protection against wild-type infection.

Plasmid-based Subunit Vaccines

The major envelope protein of ORFV can induce a strong immune response. As a major immunogenic protein, the ORFV011 protein can induce a strong antibody response by stimulating lymphocytes derived from draining lymph nodes. Furthermore, the ORFV059 protein has significant potential in subunit vaccines against antigenically identical Orf viral strains. It appears to be responsible for inducing host neutralizing antibodies and plays an important role in the virus cycle. Given the immunogenicity of the ORFV 011 and ORFV059 proteins, chimeric expression of the ORFV011 and ORFV059 proteins may induce a stronger immune response and could be served as more effective and safe approach for new vaccines against ORFV.

Creative Biolabs is committed to developing new vaccines derived from goats that may have the potential to provide protection for goats from contagious ecthyma. If you want to know more information, please feel free to contact us.

All of our products can only be used for research purposes. These vaccine ingredients CANNOT be used directly on humans or animals.