ORIGINAL ARTICLES
THE VACCINATION OF HIGHLY SUSCEPTIBLE ANIMALS AGAINST
RINDERPEST
By J. R. HADDOW and J. A. IDNANI, Imperial Veterinary Research Institute, Mukteswar
(Received for publication on 17 June 1946)
(With two text-figures)
E DWARDS [1927] by attenuating and fixing rinderpest virus in goats has provided India with a
reliable and safe means of vaccinating plains cattle. The larger problem being solved, the demand
for providing for the more susceptible populations of the hills, for buffaloes, particularly those in
milk or in-calf, and for sheep and goats has become more insistent. This demand has been accen-
tuated by the wider movement of these animals necessitated by the war. Vaccination with goat
virus alone in these species gives rise to an unpleasantly large number of severe reactions, which
may even be followed by deaths varying in extent with local conditions. The use of small doses of
serum to damp down such reactions is now almost universal, but this is expensive and unwieldy when
large herds or flocks have to be protected. The annual reports of this Institute contain many re-
ferences to attempts at simplifying the procedure, but none of these has proved acceptable to field
workers. It was decided at the beginning of the war that the position should be reviewed and fresh
efforts made to find a satisfactory solution. Entirely satisfactory results have not been attained,
but progress in certain directions was achieved and this is now recorded.
Three different strains of virus were available for experiment, (1) line E, a highly virulent epidemic
ox strain causing about 90 per cent mortality in hill-bulls, (2) line D, and old laboratory passaged
strain of ox origin causing about 12 per cent mortality, (3) line W, the goat-fixed strain causing about
12 per cent mortality. As buffaloes were seldom available, experiments were made on hill-bulls,
the mortality in which is considerably higher than in buffaloes.
ALUMINA-GEL VACCINE *
Haddow and Idnani [1941] reported that fowls could be vaccinated against Ranikhet disease
with a virus adsorbed on alumina-gels. Small-scale experiments were carried out on similar lines on
goats using vaccines made separately from line E and line W viruses. Six goats were vaccinated with
each type of vaccine. Only three in each group became available for test and all were found to be
solidly immune. The work however, was not continued, because the difficulties of preparing and
transporting such a vaccine under field conditions in India would clearly be almost insurmountable.
FORMALIZED VACCINE
Formalized vaccines prepared with line E and line W viruses were also tried on a small scale in
goats. These were prepared somewhat on the lines of Daubney [1928]. Spleen pulp was formalized
1: 1000 in nutrient broth and stored at 5°C. Vaccine prepared with line E virus was tested after
three and seven days on six goats each time, and that prepared with line W was inoculated into six
goats after six day's storage. No alteration of the viruses was perceived and owing to the high cost
of such a vaccine the work was dropped.
GLYCEROLIZED VACCINE
Since the year 1918 when Kakizaki initiated the method, several workers have made trails with
glycerolized vaccine. Bennett [1936] reported a series of experiments carried out in the Sudan.