Efficacy of oral rabies vaccination in individual age groups of juvenile red foxes

Publication date: Available online 11 October 2018Source: Veterinary MicrobiologyAuthor(s): Dimos P. Papatheodorou, Konstantia E. Tasioudi, Laskarina-Maria Korou, Vasileios L. Georgiou, Gerasimos Markantonatos, Peristera Iliadou, Aikaterini Kirtzalidou, Aggeliki Katsifa, Spyridon Ztrivas, Georgia Bechtsi, Myrsini Tzani, Eleni Chondrokouki, Olga Mangana-VougioukaAbstractAlthough juvenile red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are considered a single age group, essential for monitoring the effectiveness of the oral rabies vaccination (ORV), there appear to be significant differences among age subgroups. Herein, a subset of 335 foxes aged 0–1 year that had not consumed bait in previous campaign were collected for monitoring the effectiveness of the first seven ORV campaigns in Greece, carried out from 2013 to 2017. These juveniles were additionally assigned to three individual 4-month age groups, according to the exact date on which they were killed. The aim was to identify differences in seroconversion rate and bait uptake level and determine whether reconsideration is needed in the way that ORV monitoring is being implemented and evaluated. Statistically significant differences were observed following the analysis of mandible bone, teeth and blood samples obtained from 1–4 and 5–8-month old foxes as compared to the respective samples derived from 9–12-month old animals, whereas no differences were revealed in samples between foxes aged 1–4 and 5–8 months. Hunting juveniles du...
Source: Veterinary Microbiology - Category: Veterinary Research Source Type: research