A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future. Vaccines can be prophylactic, or therapeutic.
Plum Island Animal Disease Center of New York (PIADCNY) is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of animal diseases. It is part of the DHS Directorate for Science and Technology.
Glanders is an infectious disease that occurs primarily in horses, mules, and donkeys. It can be contracted by other animals, such as dogs, cats, goats and humans. It is caused by infection with the bacterium Burkholderia mallei, usually by ingestion of contaminated feed or water. Signs of glanders include the formation of nodular lesions in the lungs and ulceration of the mucous membranes in the upper respiratory tract. The acute form results in coughing, fever, and the release of an infectious nasal discharge, followed by septicaemia and death within days. In the chronic form, nasal and subcutaneous nodules develop, eventually ulcerating. Death can occur within months, while survivors act as carriers.
Classical swine fever (CSF) or hog cholera is a highly contagious disease of swine.
The University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine is the largest veterinary school in the United States and is currently ranked #1 among veterinary schools in the USA by US News & World report. In addition it is ranked 1st in the world according to the QS World University Rankings for two consecutive years: 2015 and 2016. Established in 1948, the school is the primary health resource for California's various animal populations. It is located in the southwest corner of the main campus of the University of California, Davis. The current Dean of Veterinary Medicine is Dr. Michael Lairmore.
The Pirbright Institute is a research institute in Surrey, England, dedicated to the study of infectious diseases of farm animals. It forms part of the UK government's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The Institute employs scientists, vets, PhD students and operations staff.
Canine influenza is influenza occurring in canine animals. Canine influenza is caused by varieties of influenzavirus A, such as equine influenza virus H3N8, which in 2004 was discovered to cause disease in dogs. Because of the lack of previous exposure to this virus, dogs have no natural immunity to it. Therefore, the disease is rapidly transmitted between individual dogs. Canine influenza may be endemic in some regional dog populations of the United States. It is a disease with a high morbidity but a low incidence of death.
Vaccines against the livestock and human disease anthrax—caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis—have had a prominent place in the history of medicine, from Pasteur’s pioneering 19th-century work with cattle to the controversial late 20th century use of a modern product to protect American troops against the use of anthrax in biological warfare. Human anthrax vaccines were developed by the Soviet Union in the late 1930s and in the US and UK in the 1950s. The current vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was formulated in the 1960s.
A chimera virus is defined by the Center for Veterinary Biologics as a "new hybrid microorganism created by joining nucleic acid fragments from two or more different microorganisms in which each of at least two of the fragments contain essential genes necessary for replication." The term chimera already referred to an individual organism whose body contained cell populations from different zygotes or an organism that developed from portions of different embryos. In mythology, a chimera is a creature such as a hippogriff or a gryphon formed from parts of different animals, thus the name for these viruses. Chimeric flaviviruses have been created in an attempt to make novel live attenuated vaccines.
Programs supporting regular vaccination of dogs have contributed both to the health of dogs and to the public health. In countries where routine rabies vaccination of dogs is practiced, for example, rabies in humans is reduced to a very rare event.
North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine is an American educational institution located in Raleigh, North Carolina that offers master's and doctorate-level degree programs; interdisciplinary research in a range of veterinary and comparative medicine topics through centers, institutes, programs and laboratories; and external engagement through public service programs and activities.
Vaccination plays a vital role in protecting cats from infectious diseases, some of which are potentially fatal. They can be exposed to these diseases from their environment, other pets, or even humans.
The Virus-Serum-Toxin Act or VSTA was United States Federal legislation designed to protect farmers and livestock raisers by regulating the quality of vaccines and point-of-care diagnostics for animals. Initially, the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act was created due to significant losses from unregulated manufacture and distribution of anti-hog cholera serum. The Act's intended purpose is to ensure the safe and efficient supply of animal vaccines and other biological products. The United States Secretary of Agriculture is responsible for licensing and regulating the manufacture, importation, and exportation of affected agents. The act and its applicable guidelines are managed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
An animal drug refers to a drug intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in animals.
Indian Immunologicals Limited or IIL is a vaccine manufacturing facility and biotechnology laboratory in Hyderabad, Ooty and Rajkot. IIL is one of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world. It was established in 1983 by the National Dairy Development Board.
Petrus Johann du Toit was a noted South African veterinary scientist and the successor of Arnold Theiler as Director of Veterinary Services at Onderstepoort between 1927 and 1948. He was the son of Daniel Francois du Toit (1846–1923), one of the founders of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners, and owner of the first Afrikaans newspaper, Die Patriot. His mother was Margaretha Magdalene van Nierop.
The United States biological defense program—in recent years also called the National Biodefense Strategy—began as a small defensive effort that paralleled the country's offensive biological weapons development and production program, active between 1943 and 1969. Organizationally, the medical defense research effort was pursued first (1956-1969) by the U.S. Army Medical Unit (USAMU) and later, after the discontinuation of the offensive program, by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Both of these units were located at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories were headquartered. The current mission is multi-agency, not exclusively military, and is purely to develop defensive measures against bio-agents, as opposed to the former bio-weapons development program.
Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) was established in 2002 for the primary purpose of HIV vaccine development and building of vaccine testing capability in Uganda. It is one of the 5 international research sites established by the Department of Defense (DoD) United States HIV Research Program (MHRP), a program centered at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, Maryland. MUWRP’s main facility is centrally located in Kampala, near the Makerere University College of Health Sciences where the MUWRP laboratory is located. The main facility includes the clinic, administrative and data offices.
A Foreign animal disease (FAD) is an animal disease or pest, whether terrestrial or aquatic, not known to exist in the United States or its territories. When these diseases can significantly affect human health or animal production and when there is significant economic cost for disease control and eradication efforts, they are considered a threat to the United States. Another term gaining preference to be used is Transboundary Animal Disease (TAD), which is defined as those epidemic diseases which are highly contagious or transmissible and have the potential for very rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, causing serious socio-economic and possibly public health consequences. An Emerging Animal Disease "may be defined as any terrestrial animal, aquatic animal, or zoonotic disease not yet known or characterized, or any known or characterized terrestrial animal or aquatic animal disease in the United States or its territories that changes or mutates in pathogenicity, communicability, or zoonotic potential to become a threat to terrestrial animals, aquatic animals, or humans."
Gopal Dhinakar Raj is an Indian veterinary scientist, an academic and the project director of the Translational Research Platform for Veterinary Biologicals, a partnership program between the Department of Biotechnology and the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. Known for the development of diagnostic test kits for animal and poultry diseases such as Leptospirosis and Egg drop syndrome, Raj is a member of the DBT Task Force on Animal Biotechnology. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2007.
