Inactivated AHS Vaccine Shows Promise

An inactivated vaccine that targets all nine serotypes of African horse sickness (AHS) virus is showing encouraging results in trials performed in the United Arab Emirates, where protective antibody levels remained high in vaccinated horses for nearly a year.

With annual boosters, the vaccine could keep horses safe from any of the AHS virus serotypes without the risks associated with a live-virus vaccine, which can sometimes produce the disease, said Marina Rodriguez Caveney, DVM, of the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) in Dubai.

The inactivated vaccine effectively protects horses from the disease—or at least from death, CVRL researchers said. It appears to work whether they live in endemic regions of Africa or in zones hit by temporary outbreaks, such as the one that struck Thailand last year, leaving dozens of dead horses in its wake.

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