Theme 5 “Intervention Strategies”
Theme leaders: Dr Linda Dixon, Institute for Animal Health, United Kingdom and
Dr Marie-Frédérique Le Potier, Agence Française de Securité Sanitaire
des Aliments, France.
EPIZONE
integrates research throughout Europe aimed at effective control of epizootic diseases by use of intervention strategies.
Intervention Strategies is focussing on the OIE list A diseases African swine fever, classical swine fever, foot-and-mouth disease, bluetongue, Rift Valley fever and avian influenza.
· The goal is to improve the efficacy of vaccination regimes by using different antigen delivery systems and by exploiting traditional and novel molecular adjuvants, such as cytokines, to activate and direct the immune response to appropriate protective responses.
· Identification of the mechanisms and indicators of protection is an important goal in optimising vaccine strategies. EPIZONE is coordinating the development and use of assays and reagents for this purpose.
· Although antivirals are widely used to control human infections, as yet they have not been used to control epizootic infections in farm animals. EPIZONE aims to make use of both traditional drugs and other novel molecules to control virus infections.
The rapid deployment of antivirals has the potential to limit the spread of infection by reducing replication of virus before the induction of immunity following vaccination. If the antiviral is particularly effective this can be an effective control measure alone. The development of an effective vaccination regime requires the parallel development of DIVA diagnostics which are essential in eradication campaigns to distinguish between infected and vaccinated animals.
Similarly knowledge from surveillance, risk analysis and molecular epidemiology to define prevalence of virus strains circulating and the likelihood of their introduction, is important in directing vaccine development.