Poultry Veterinary Vaccines

Several vaccine types can de distinguished among the second-generation veterinary vaccines, depending whether they are live or inactivated, according to the strain of rabies virus used and the characteristics of the cell substrate chosen for viral replication.

Considerable progress has been made in the production of rabies vaccines whether live or inactivated for animal use during the past two decades with the increasing use of continuous cell lines as a substrate and adoption of the fermentor technology for antigen production. These vaccines are produced for administration to domestic animals or wild species by parenteral or oral routes according to vaccine characteristics.

Highly immunogenic inactivated cell culture vaccines for immunization of dogs via the parenteral route are now widely available on the international market at a cost affordable to more and more dog owners in the developing world. In addition the trend towards transfer or acquisition of modern cell culture technology for parenteral veterinary vaccine production is increasing in developing countries particularly in Asia.

More recently a third generation of live veterinary rabies vaccine has been developed using recombinant technology. Depending upon the expression system these vaccines are used either parenterally or orally. Oral rabies vaccines are widely used in foxes in Europe and in racoons in the USA. Trials are under way for the oral immunization of dogs in developing countries