Date: August 31, 2016
Source: University of Oxford
Research published this week in
the journal Vaccine reports field trials of the oral vaccine SAG2 in
Ethiopian wolves, Africa's most threatened carnivore and the world's rarest
canid.
The trials, undertaken by the
University of Oxford, the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority and the UK
Animal and Plant Health Agency in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia, are the first
ever conducted in wild populations of an endangered carnivore.
Researchers from Ethiopia and the
UK tested various types of baits and ways to deliver the vaccine, trialling
SAG2 in three wolf packs. Of 21 wolves trapped after vaccinations, 14 were
positive for a biomarker indicating that the animal had ingested the bait; of
these, half showed antibody titres in blood above the universally recognised
threshold, and 86% had levels considered sufficient to provide protective
immunity to wildlife. Wolves were closely monitored after the vaccination, and
all but one of the wolves vaccinated were alive 14 months later (higher than
average survival).
Oral vaccination proved to be the
answer to controlling rabies in wild populations of red foxes and northern
raccoons in Europe and North America, but the approach has never been tested in
wild populations of endangered carnivores such as Ethiopian wolves and African
wild dogs, which are at risk of extinction because of outbreaks of infectious
diseases.
Rabies is a virus that kills
people, domestic livestock and wild animals worldwide, and is particularly
prevalent in the highlands of Ethiopia, where rabies recurrently jumps from
domestic dogs into their wild relatives, the charismatic Ethiopian wolves. With
fewer than 500 adult wolves left in half a dozen mountain ranges, and no
captive populations, Ethiopian wolves are much rarer than giant pandas and
unlikely to sustain the immediate and present threats rising from growing
numbers of dogs and people living in and around their mountain enclaves.
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