Reported rabies pre-exposure immunization of students at US Colleges of Veterinary Medicine.

In 2008, the US experienced a disruption in human rabies vaccine supplies, leading public health authorities to prioritize vaccine release for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and limit vaccine supplies for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreEP) in high-risk groups. In 2008, the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) surveyed its member institutions on rabies vaccination policies and practices. Senior administrators at Colleges of Veterinary Medicine (CVMs) and departments of veterinary science and comparative medicine were asked to identify the person most knowledgeable about their institution's student rabies vaccination program. Respondents were asked to describe their policies and procedures for administering PreEP to veterinary medical students and staff and to estimate the annual demand for student and staff PreEP vaccine. Twenty-one CVMs responded. Twenty (95%) reported requiring PreEP of veterinary medical students and 16 (80%) of those 20 required vaccination upon matriculation. An estimated 7,309 doses of vaccine were required for PreEP of an estimated 2,436 first-year US veterinary medical students. Seventy-two percent of respondents administered PreEP in August, September, and October, coinciding with the highest public demand for PEP. CVMs should consider altering the timing of rabies vaccine administration to veterinary medical students and staff to other months, thereby helping to ensure that PEP rabies vaccine will be available to people with validated rabies exposures and to ensure that supplies will be available for PreEP of students and staff. AAVMC may wish to identify and support a point of coordination to facilitate the purchase and distribution of human rabies vaccine among its US member CVMs.

Public-health instruction necessary to supplement the veterinary professional curriculum: the DVM/MPH coordinated-degree program at Auburn University.

To meet long-term needs, many veterinary colleges and schools are participating in dual-degree DVM/MPH programs. Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have developed a coordinated-degree curriculum in which the DVM and the MPH are not necessarily awarded simultaneously. Other opportunities at Auburn include Public Health Careers Day, trips to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several elective courses related to veterinary epidemiology, and online access to the Emerging and Exotic Diseases of Animals course available from the Veterinary Information Network. We have been able to increase our students' exposure to the role of the veterinarian in public health and to develop a program to augment their training in public practice.

Channel catfish hepcidin expression in infection and anemia.

Hepcidin, originally identified as a 25 amino acid antimicrobial peptide made in the liver, is a key regulator of iron balance and recycling in humans and mice. Closely related hepcidin genes and peptides have also been identified in a number of fish species and in teleosts are thought to function as endogenous antibiotics involved in host defense against infection. Here we report the transcriptional regulation of hepcidin expression by infection and anemia in the channel catfish. Changes in hepcidin expression in catfish challenged with Edwardsiella ictaluri and in fish affected by channel catfish anemia (CCA) were measured by real time quantitative PCR. Hepcidin transcript levels in the livers were increased 4, 19, and 22-fold at 4, 24, and 48h following bacterial challenge, respectively. However, augmented hepcidin expression in the intestine and olfactory sac was detected only at 48h post-infection. Hepcidin transcript levels in the livers of catfish affected by CCA were less than 14% of that present in healthy counterparts. Hepatic hepcidin transcript levels correlated significantly with serum iron concentrations (r=0.54, p<0.05) and with the percent saturation of transferrin (r=0.63, p<0.05). Similar to mammalian hepcidins, channel catfish hepcidin is an iron-responsive gene and may also play important roles in innate host defense to infection and in iron homeostasis. Mammalian hepcidins may have evolved from an antimicrobial peptide and its structure and transcriptional regulatory mechanisms have been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution.

Absence of humoral response in flamingos and red-tailed hawks to experimental vaccination with a killed West Nile virus vaccine.

Sixteen Chilean flamingos, Phoenicopterus chiles, and 10 red-tailed hawks, Buteo jamacensis, were vaccinated in the pectoral muscle with 0.2 ml of a commercially produced killed West Nile virus vaccine intended for use in horses. Half the birds of each species received a booster vaccination 3 weeks after the first injection. Three weeks after the booster vaccination, none of 13 birds surveyed had detectable antibody to West Nile virus.

Protective immunity induced by DNA vaccination of channel catfish with early and late transcripts of the channel catfish herpesvirus (IHV-1).

Seven full-length transcripts encoding four early and three late genes of the channel catfish virus (CCV), ictalurid herpesvirus I (IHV-1), have been cloned following rt-PCR amplification and DNA sequencing. Transcripts were selected based on their predicted association with membrane structures, identification as an envelope glycoprotein, or as a viral capsid protein. The transcripts derived from ORF 6, ORF 7, ORF 8a, ORF 10, ORF 51, ORF 53, and ORF 59 were all shown to be complete and unspliced. Each of the seven ORFs was cloned into a vaccine expression vector designed to support high levels of expression of the inserted sequence in catfish tissues. Solutions of DNA containing one each of the seven CCV ORFs, vector alone or PBS were injected intramuscularly into 4-8 cm catfish. Four to 6 weeks after injection each experimental group was challenged with one LD(50) of CCV. Single injections of DNA expression constructs containing ORF 59, encoding the envelope glycoprotein, or ORF 6, encoding a presumptive membrane protein, were found to elicit the strongest resistance to challenge compared to uninjected, PBS injected or vector injected groups. Even more effective was a combination vaccine pair in which both ORF 59 and ORF 6 expression constructs were injected. Other ORFs did not provide consistent protection to challenge above that observed in control fish. Both percent survival and kinetics of cumulative deaths were improved using the combination DNA vaccine encoding ORF 6 and ORF 59. Both ORF 6 and ORF 59 were able to elicit virus neutralizing antibodies capable of an anamnestic response on viral challenge. We believe this evidence provides adequate proof of principle for the use of DNA vaccines in channel catfish and the effectiveness of the resistance to viral infection they elicit.