Pet health – Born To Be Wild

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Could Lyme protection be built on rabies vaccine?

The NIH has awarded a grant to immunobiologist Utpal Pal, a professor at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, who is exploring a way of using the rabies vaccine to stimulate protection against the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Pal is working with Matthias Schnell, director of Thomas Jefferson University’s Jefferson Vaccine Center, who has studied the concept with other viral vaccines.

The University of Maryland is leading an initiative supported by a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a novel, next-generation Lyme disease vaccine.

The grant is funding the efforts of tick immunobiologist Utpal Pal, PhD, to adapt the rabies vaccination platform to stimulate production of antibodies against the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria responsible for Lyme disease.

Dr. Pal is a professor in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He is partnering with Matthias Schnell, PhD, director of Thomas Jefferson University’s Jefferson Vaccine Center, which is known for the study and application of the rabies virus as a platform for vaccination, according to an Oct. 2 statement from the University of Maryland.

“We are using the rabies virus as a delivery platform to send in some vaccine candidates for Borrelia,” Dr. Pal explained. “For rabies, we can produce an inactivated virus that helps the body produce the antibodies needed to fight it. Since we can produce the rabies vaccine and antibody proteins safely, why not have this virus produce other types of proteins that can do something else, like fight Borrelia?”

Although proven by Dr. Schnell and colleagues to be effective for other viral vaccinations, this approach has not yet been explored for Borrelia and other tick-borne diseases.

Using proteins that Dr. Pal’s laboratory previously identified as vaccine candidates, Dr. Pal and his team hope to combine these proteins with the rabies virus to deliver long-lasting, safe, and effective immunity. Their work will include testing the four candidate proteins, along with three major types of rabies vaccine platforms that could be effective for Lyme disease.

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Niagara-area dog tests positive for COVID-19 …but most pets are still safe

A dog in Ontario’s Niagara Region has tested positive for COVID-19, although researchers say most pet owners shouldn’t be worried.

Positive tests for novel coronavirus in dogs are rare because they are typically asymptomatic and they get over the ailment quickly.

Scott Weese, the chief of infection control at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College, is part of a study that found the positive case in the Niagara area. He said that any household where a person has COVID-19 should include their pets in the quarantine as a precautionary measure.

“Your dog is less likely to be infected than the people in your household, but it’s possible and we don’t want to create the chance that your dog can pass it on,” said Weese on Monday morning.

He also noted that pet owners should not be worried about their animals falling ill.

“It’s a human virus,” said Weese. “It likes people and there are some animal species that can be effected but that’s a spillover.

“We’ve got probably not uncommon human-to-dog infection but the dogs rarely, if ever, get sick.”

Other animals, like non-human primates and minks, are much more susceptible to the virus than dogs.

Weese said that of approximately 40 pets tested in the study only the dog has been confirmed as having the virus. A cat in the study had some lingering antibodies from COVID-19, suggesting it had once been sick.

Testing animals for the study has been difficult logistically. The household first has to discover that a person has COVID-19, then contact the researchers to have their pets checked, and then the test has to be administered within the relatively small window that the animal may be sick.

“We’re looking at a few different aspects of (COVID-19) like how it’s moving and if it’s moving between people and animals,” said Weese. The antibody testing — after the virus has passed — is usually how it’s confirmed an animal had the coronavirus, he said.

“It looks like it’s probably not that uncommon for people to spread it to their pets and for the pets to not have any consequences from it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2020.