Safety, Immunogenicity and Antibody Persistence of Rift Valley Fever Virus Clone 13 Vaccine in Sheep, Goats and Cattle in Tanzania

Calvin Sindato; Esron D Karimuribo; Emmanuel S Swai; Leonard E G Mboera; Mark M Rweyemamu; Janusz T Paweska; Jeremy Salt

doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.779858

Safety, Immunogenicity and Antibody Persistence of Rift Valley Fever Virus Clone 13 Vaccine in Sheep, Goats and Cattle in Tanzania

Front Vet Sci. 2021 Dec 17:8:779858. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2021.779858. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Calvin Sindato^{1

2}, Esron D Karimuribo^{2

3}, Emmanuel S Swai⁴, Leonard E G Mboera², Mark M Rweyemamu², Janusz T Paweska^{2

5

6

7}, Jeremy Salt⁸

Affiliations

¹ National Institute for Medical Research, Tabora Research Centre, Tabora, Tanzania.
² SACIDS Foundation for One Health, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.
³ College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.
⁴ Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, Dodoma, Tanzania.
⁵ National Health Laboratory Service, Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Sandringham, South Africa.
⁶ Department of Medical Virology, Centre for Viral Zoonoses, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
⁷ Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Pathology, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
⁸ Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Background: Vaccination is considered to be the best approach to control Rift Valley fever (RVF) in animals and consequently in humans. This study assessed the efficacy and safety of the RVF virus (RVFV) Clone 13 vaccine under field conditions. Methodology: A vaccine trial was conducted in sheep (230), goats (230), and cattle (140) in Ngorongoro district, Tanzania. Half of each of the animal species were vaccinated and the other half received the placebo. Animals were clinically monitored and bled before vaccination and at days 15, 30, 60, 180 and 360 (+/- 10) post-vaccination to measure Immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG antibody responses to RVFV. Survival analysis was conducted using cox-proportional hazard regression model to measure the time until an event of interest had occurred and to compare the cumulative proportion of events over time. Results: Of 600 animals included in the study, 120 animals were lost during the study, leaving a total of 480 (243 in the vaccinated group and 237 in the control group) for complete follow-up sampling. There was no adverse reaction reported at the injection site of the vaccine/placebo in all animals. Abortions, deaths, or body temperature variations were not associated with vaccination (p > 0.05). By day 15 post-inoculation, the IgG seroconversion in vaccinated goats, cattle and sheep was 27.0% (n = 115), 20.0% (n = 70) and 10.4% (n = 115), respectively. By day 30 post-inoculation, it was 75.0% (n = 113), 74.1% (n = 112) and 57.1% (n = 70) in vaccinated sheep, goats and cattle, respectively. By day 60 post-inoculation, IgG seroconversion in sheep, goats and cattle was 88.1% (n = 109), 84.3% (n = 108) and 64.60% (n = 65), respectively. By day 180, the IgG seroconversion in sheep, goats and cattle was 88.0% (n = 108), 83.8% (n = 105) and 66.1% (n = 62), respectively. By day 360, the IgG seroconversion in sheep, goats and cattle was 87.2% (n = 94), 85.6% (n = 90) and 66.1% (n = 59), respectively. Only five animals from the vaccinated group were RVFV IgM positive, which included four sheep and a goat. Conclusion: RVFV Clone 13 vaccine was well tolerated by sheep, goats, and cattle. The vaccine induced detectable, but variable levels of IgG responses, and of different duration. The vaccine is considered safe, with high immunogenicity in sheep and goats and moderate in cattle.

Keywords: Clone 13 vaccine; Rift Valley fever virus; Tanzania; cattle; goat; immunogenicity; safety; sheep.