Emergency vaccination of cattle with Goatpox vaccine against LSD in India: Evaluation of efficacy and potency

Abstract

Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is a re-emerging transboundary viral disease of cattle and buffaloes with severe economic impact and is listed as a notifiable disease by the World Organization for Animal Health. Mass vaccination of susceptible animals is the foremost approach in tackling this infectious disease. Although the efficacy and immunogenicity of homologous LSD vaccine (Lumpi-ProVacInd) is known to be excellent, cost of vaccine production along with the neethling responses observed in the vaccinated animals and limited availability for the field use during the current outbreak are the major limitations. Live attenuated Goatpox vaccine of Uttarkashi strain is authorized by the government for control of LSD as an emergency measure in India during 2022. The present study deals with an objective to determine the optimum dose of Goatpox vaccine against LSD infection in cattle. Vaccination trial was conducted in randomly selected heifers placed into four groups (A, B, C and D) of eight animals each. Group A served as control group, while groups B, C and D were vaccinated with 1mL, 2mL and 3mL of 1 X 103.0 TCID50/dose of Goatpox vaccine respectively. Group D vaccinated with 3 times the dose used in goats produced the best humoral immunity and the responses persisted till the end of the trail i.e., 35 days post vaccination (p > 0.05).