Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) is an acute and highly contagious viral disease of small ruminants caused by Morbilivirus. PPR induces high morbidity and mortality in infected animals and is responsible for huge economic losses to livestock holders and dairy industry. Live attenuated freeze-dried vaccines are commonly used to control the infectious diseases. There is loss of virus titer during freeze drying and post reconstitution of the vaccine resulting in the decrease efficacy of vaccine. Stabilizers are therefore added to protect the virus from freeze drying stress and heat shock during storage and transportation. Therefore, in present study different stabilizers (Weybridge medium-WBM, Lactalbumin hydrolysate sucrose-LS, Lactalbumin hydrolysate sorbitol-LSbG, TrisTrehalose-TT, Tris sucrose-TS and Goat skimmed milk-GSM) were evaluated to protect the infectivity titer of the virus. The stabilizers having carbohydrates (sucrose, sorbitol and trehalose), salts (sodium glutamate) and hydrolyzed proteins (Lactalbumin hydrolysate) are effective to make compact mass of PPR virus vaccine. Casein or other proteins (not hydrolyzed) in stabilizers may act as allergens and could cause anaphylactic shock in the vaccinated animals.  However, TS did not make compact mass (cake) of vaccine but all the contents of the virus suspension evaporated while WBM, LS, GSM and LSbG maintained infectivity titer of the vaccine virus (if reconstituted with PBS and stored at 4°C) for 12 hours. However, Tris Trehalose-TT is able to protect infectivity titer of the vaccine virus during freeze drying and even during its storage after rehydration with PBS at 4°C for 24 hours.

To Cite This Article: Latif MZ, Muhammad K, Hussain R, Siddique F, Altaf I, Anees M, Imran M, Hameed M and Farooq M, 2018. Effect of stabilizers on infectivity titer of freeze dried Peste des Petits Ruminants virus vaccine. Pak Vet J, 38(2): 169-173. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2018.032