Abstract
Africa is experiencing reoccurrence of avian influenza outbreaks with huge negative impact on the economy of the continent as a result of high mortality rate and extreme contagiousness of the disease. The epidemiology of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Africa during the 2006-2008 outbreaks was complex and linked to movements of poultry commodities and wild birds. The peculiar risk factors, negative economic impact and the potential of being used as a biological weapon necessitates the development of a comprehensive control programme for the prevention or eradication of the disease. It is the opinion of this paper that development of new influenza vaccine technologies will provide affordable comprehensive control programmes for avian influenza prevention in Africa. To keep pace with the variability of the viruses, there is need for frequent redesign of avian influenza (AI) vaccines to match the circulating subtypes and on this is predicated the necessity of the development of influenza vaccine technology for a country, zone or region. The new vaccine technologies have been shown to have the potentials of giving vaccines with required criteria of purity, safety, efficacy, potency, low cost and short response time. The concept of most new vaccine technologies is biased towards removal of influenza virus from the system of vaccine development and at the same time obtaining more effective, potent and safe influenza vaccines. The new influenza vaccine technologies include gene-based, genomics-based, subunit, plant-based, VLPs and universal vaccine technologies. These technologies have the potential to provide vaccines that will not just be used as intervention strategies to lessen severity of the disease but as preventative vaccination. Also routine vaccination will not just be as a tool of last option in disease endemic areas, but one to prevent the disease. Key words: Technologies, avian influenza, vaccine, eradication, prevention, comprehensive, control, programme.
Highlights
During the 2006-2008 outbreaks in Africa, eleven countries reported infection or re-infection of poultry flocks and/or wild and migratory birds (Joannis et al, 2008)
A critical review of influenza vaccine technologies reveal that the new technologies have more advantages than drawbacks compared to the conventional technologies that gave rise to the current stand. It is the opinion of this paper that development of new influenza vaccine technologies will provide affordable comprehensive control programmes for avian influenza prevention in Africa
Tao et al (2009) and Behzadian et al (2013) used Baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) to express recombinant HA, NA and M1 of H5N1 origin which self-assembled to form virus-like particles (VLPs) and conferred complete protection against heterologous H5N1 isolates. These results show that bacullovirus vector based influenza vaccine technology is promising as evidenced by induction of superior immune responses in the pre-clinical studies reported
Summary
During the 2006-2008 outbreaks in Africa, eleven countries reported infection or re-infection of poultry flocks and/or wild and migratory birds (Joannis et al, 2008). Reported to have confirmed cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza infection in birds or humans and two of these countries are in Africa: Egypt and South Africa (WHO, 2013). As at December 2014, more than fifteen countries reported confirmed cases of avian influenza (AI) outbreaks involving more than five subtypes (H7N2, H5N1, H5N2, H5N6, H5N8 and H7N9) with Egypt as the only African country (WHO, 2014). OIE report of 17th June 2015 showed that six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Libya, Niger, Nigeria) had confirmed cases of H5N1 outbreaks (OIE, 2015).
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