It’s that dreaded time of the year again- the flu season. And we aren’t the only ones suffering, our doggos are too.
However, a team from the University of Rochester Medical Center along with their collaborators have developed a new vaccine that may make the doggy flu a thing of the past.
The canine influenza H3N8 is a relatively new disease in dogs. It was first seen in horses about 40 years ago, before it is believed to have mutated to become infectious to dogs. The first US outbreak of the influenza happened in Chicago in 2015, later attributed to the strain found in racing greyhounds in Florida.
There are two H3N8 vaccines available for use in dogs, but they don’t provide full protection and are marketed as mere aids to control the disease. Therefore, scientists have now developed, for the first time, a nasal vaccine that can be sprayed up the nose of the dog to create an immune response right where the flu virus usually invades their body.
A big advantage of this novel vaccine is tha
t it “only requires a single administration, contrary to the current vaccine (flu shot) that requires two doses separated in 3-4 weeks interval.”The body—ours or a dog’s—produces only antibodies in response to indisposed microbes in form of vaccines, but then live, attenuated vaccines activate both the immune system and the antibody production. This is exactly why attenuated/weakened viral vaccines provide comparatively better immune responses and longer protection periods.
The study in discussion does just this- the scientists used live, attenuated vaccine which, in the course of the study, was deemed safe and was shown to produce better immune protection against the H3N8 canine influenza virus in mice and dog tracheal cells than the present commercially-available inactivated flu vaccine.
Therefore, this research is not only important for improving the health of our furry friends, but for keeping us safe, too- having significant implications in both cases.
“But, we are currently developing a live-attenuated vaccine for the treatment of the new H3N2 canine influenza virus using a similar approach to the one that is currently used for the human influenza vaccine,” Martinez-Sobrido, the lead scientist of the study.
The next step will be to test this new nasal live, attenuated canine flu vaccine in clinical trials with dogs. As to how often dogs will need vaccination with the nasal vaccine,
Martinez-Sobrido believes that it depends on whether the virus changes from year to year. The study team plans to monitor for viruses circulating in dogs to determine if the vaccine’s immunity is still protecting them.
