Rotavirus animals

A good example of the recent and future evolution of viral vaccines and their concomitant issues of technology, complexity and competition, is the rotavirus vaccine. This is of great relevance for the prevention of diarrhea, which is often deadly in developing countries (half a million deaths per year) and has high hospitalization costs in rich countries. After successive failures of monovalent vaccines, multivalent vaccines based on the reshuffling of rotavirus strains comprising the attenuation properties of animal strains with the external capsid of human serotypes were developed. 

Apart from animal studies, a large number of clinical studies have been carried out since the 1970s to demonstrate the efficacy of immune milk preparations in the prophylaxis or therapy of human GI diseases. These studies have been reviewed in several articles (Facon et al., 1993 Hammarstrom et al., 1994 Ruiz, 1994 Davidson, 1996 Weiner et al., 1999 Korhonen et al., 2000b Lilius and Mamila, 2001). Examples of immune milk trials carried out in humans are described in Table II. Clinical evidence obtained in most of these studies indicates that immune milk preparations are protective and, to some extent, also therapeutic against rotavirus infections in children (Ebina et al, 1985 Davidson et al., 1989 Mitra et al, 1995 Sarker et al, 1998). A protective or therapeutic effect of immune milk has also been demonstrated in humans against... 

In the MFGM of human milk, mucin is associated with two other glycoproteins, butyrophilin and lactadherin. Yolken et al. (1992) found that a non-immunological fraction of human milk inhibited the replication of rotaviruses in tissue culture, and prevented the development of gastroenteritis in an animal model. Further characterization indicated that virus bound to mucin and to the associated 46 kD protein (identified as lactadherin). The biological functions of lactadherin may be related to its ability to interact physically with a wide variety of molecules. 

Potential waterborne diseases that follow tsunamis include cholera diarrheal or fecal-oral diseases, such as amebiasis, cryptosporidiosis, cyclosporiasis, giardiasis, hepatitis A and E, leptospirosis, parasitic infections, rotavirus, shigellosis, and typhoid fever animal- or mosquito-borne illness, such as plague, rabies, malaria, Japanese encephalitis, and dengue fever (and the potentially fatal complication dengue hemorrhagic shock syndrome) and wound-associated infections and diseases, such as tetanus. Mental health concerns are another consequence of tsunami events. 

Two second-generation rotavirus vaccine candidates (one composed of five human-animal reassortants, RotaTeq , and the other a monovalent attenuated human rotavirus vaccine, Rotarix ) were in development in 1999, and after 7 years of study, they were licensed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and many other licensing authorities. Both vaccines are efficacious and both underwent extensive safety trials in more than 130000 children, in whom there was no association with intussusception. In the years since licensing, there have been substantial reductions in the rates of hospitalization and death from rotavirus in both developed and less-developed countries. As part of post-licensing safety follow-up, the possible effect of the widespread use of rotavirus vaccines on rates of intussusception has been monitored carefully [2V]. 

Ciarlet M, Estes MK (1999) Human and most animal rotavirus strains do not require the presence of sialic acid on the cell surface for efficient infectivity. J Gen Virol 80 943-948... 

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