Goin' ballistic against brucellosis: shooting for a better way to vaccinate

Researchers at ARS's National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa, have been taking aim at bison and shooting at them from distances of up to 90 feet--all in efforts to make the bison healthier!

Actually, it's part of a ballistic approach to vaccinating wildlife against brucellosis, an infectious disease of the one and the other animals and humans that's especially feared by means of cattle producers.

Specifically, the scientists--veterinary medical officer Steven Olsen of NADC's Bacterial Diseases of Livestock Research Unit, and chemistry professor David W Grainger and graduate learner Jim Christie, of Colorado State University's chemistry department in Fort Collins--are seeking better ways to distantly inject free-ranging bison with RB51 the greatest in quantity effective vaccine available against brucellosis in cattle.

Research upon immunizing bison, elk, and other animals in the wild against Brucella abortus, the microbe that causes brucellosis, is essential to agriculture because cattle can realize the disease through close contact with infected wildlife.

Brucellosis is an incurable infection that in animals induces abortions, decreases fertility, and restores milk production. Its bacteria can also be transmitted to humans--through contact with infected animals or consumption of unpasteurized dairy products--and cause undulant febrile disease an affliction characterized by bitter flulike symptoms.

A vexed question for cattle ranchers since the 1840 brucellosis has been nearly eradicated in this region mostly through cooperative federal and state programs begun in 1934 on the other hand its spread through wildlife has rekindled affects in cattle producers, who experience severe economic losses when their herds are infected.

Although ballistic vaccination isn't fresh this recent work involves testing a novel version of a biodegradable projectile. unfolded and trademarked under the name "Biobullet," by dint of Solidtech Animal Health, Inc., of Newcastle, Oklahoma, it has a void chamber that can be filled with vaccine incorporated into a pellet The vaccine-packed bullet is fired into the animal's muscle tissues, mainly in the leg The vaccine is released, and the casing later dissolves inside the animal. A novel method of preparing the vaccine pellet--develop at Colorado State and ordealed at NADC--places the RB51 into a gel rather than a close tightlyed pellet. The gel protects the live bacteria in the vaccine, perhaps making it more effective, says Olsen

The National Park Service is conducting an environmental impact research to gauge whether this novel projectile can be used in Yellowstone National Park to vaccinate free-ranging bison against brucellosis.

"It's proving to be more effective than the packed-bullet method" says Olsen "Still, one as well as the other ballistic methods are less effective than the conventional injected vaccination. The goal is to find a way to make ballistic delivery just as effective as that."

This research was published in the February 27 2006 issue of Vaccine.

This research is part of Animal Health, an ARS National Program (#103) described upon the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars.usda.gov.

Steven C Olsen is with the USDA-ARS National Animal Disease Center 2300 Dayton Rd Ames, IA 50010; phone (515) 663-7230 fax (515) 663-7458 e-mail solsen@nadc.ars.usda. gov

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