title: Virological and serological response of sheep following field vaccination with bivalent modified-live vaccine against bluetongue virus serotypes 2 and 9.
abstract: A group of 44 sheep was vaccinated with the bivalent modified-live vaccine against bluetongue virus (BTV) serotype 2 (BTV-2) and BTV-9 to evaluate viraemia and antibody kinetics. Blood samples were taken from the sheep three times a week for two months and screened for the presence of BTV and for antibody using the competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (c-ELISA) and the virus neutralisation (VN) test. Intravenous egg inoculation, followed by two blind passages in Vero cells, was used to isolate BTV-2 and BTV-9 from the ethylene-diaminetetra-acetic acid (EDTA) blood samples; virus titres were also determined in the viraemic animals. BTV was detected in the blood of 39 sheep between day 3 and day 24 post vaccination (pv). Viraemia peaked on day 7 pv with average titres of 10(5.3)TCID50/ml. Antibodies were first detected in the c-ELISA on day 6 pv and by day 16, all sheep were seropositive. Only 36 of the 44 inoculated sheep developed virus-neutralising antibodies against both BTV-2 and BTV-9 while 4 were positive to BTV-2 only; neutralising antibodies were not detected in the 4 remaining animals. Antibody titres were very low and unstable and often bordered on the negative/positive threshold.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale, dell'Abruzzo e del Molise G. Caporale, via Campo Boario, 64100 Teramo, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Savini
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Monaco
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Conte
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Migliaccio
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Casaccia
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Salucci
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Di Ventura