Abstract
In spite of annual mass vaccination programs with polyvalent inactivated vaccines, the incidence and economic impact of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Egypt is high. Viruses of the A, O and SAT 2 serotypes are endemic and repeated incursions of new lineages from other countries lead to an unstable situation that makes the selection of appropriate vaccine antigens very difficult. In this study, whole genome sequencing of a 2016 serotype A isolate from Egypt revealed a recombination event with an African serotype O virus. Based on available vaccine matching data, none of the vaccines currently used in Egypt are expected to sufficiently protect against this virus or other viruses of this lineage (A/AFRICA/G-IV) circulating there since 2012. In addition to the risk of vaccine failure caused by strain mismatch, the production of inactivated FMD vaccines is dangerous if adequate biosafety cannot be maintained. Using a high-throughput sequencing protocol optimized for short nucleic acid fragments, the composition of a local inactivated vaccine was analyzed in depth. The serotype O strain identified in the vaccine was genetically identical to viruses found in recent FMD outbreaks in Egypt.
Highlights
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), caused by a highly contagious viral pathogen that belongs to the genus Aphthovirus in the family Picornaviridae [1], is a major burden of agriculture and trade worldwide [2]
The recovery of FMD virus (FMDV) RNA from the card was calculated from the mean Cq values of the original material and the RNA extracted from the excised spots by the following formula:
The manifest cytopathic effect in the passage was considered indicative of viral replication; this was confirmed by RNA extraction and FMDV real-time RT-PCR as described above
Summary
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), caused by a highly contagious viral pathogen that belongs to the genus Aphthovirus in the family Picornaviridae [1], is a major burden of agriculture and trade worldwide [2]. Current vaccines are chemically inactivated but structurally intact virions [5] selected to match the viruses circulating in a specific area or region [2]. This is challenging because there are seven immunologically distinct serotypes of FMDV: O, A, C, Asia 1 and Southern African. Recent Egyptian virus isolates and locally produced vaccines were analyzed to better understand the epidemiological situation in the region and support effective FMD control measures
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