Prevalence of Neutralizing Antibodies to Canine Distemper Virus and Response to Vaccination in Client-Owned Adult Healthy Dogs

Abstract

Re-vaccinations against canine distemper virus (CDV) are commonly performed in 3-year intervals. The study’s aims were to determine anti-CDV antibodies in healthy adult dogs within 28 days of vaccination against CDV, and to evaluate factors associated with the presence of pre-vaccination antibodies and with the antibody response to vaccination. Ninety-seven dogs, not vaccinated within 1 year before enrollment, were vaccinated with a modified live CDV vaccine. A measurement of the antibodies was performed before vaccination (day 0), on day 7, and 28 after the vaccination by virus neutralization. A response to vaccination was defined as a ≥4-fold titer increase by day 28. Fisher’s exact test was used to determine factors associated with a lack of antibodies and vaccination response. In total, 94.8% of the dogs (92/97; CI 95%: 88.2–98.1) had antibodies (≥10) prior to vaccination. A response to vaccination was not observed in any dog. Five dogs were considered humoral non-responders; these dogs neither had detectable antibodies before, nor developed antibodies after vaccination. Young age (<2 years) was significantly associated with a lack of pre-vaccination antibodies (p = 0.018; OR: 26.825; 95% CI: 1.216–1763.417). In conclusion, necessity of re-vaccination in adult healthy dogs should be debated and regular vaccinations should be replaced by antibody detection.

The first study on confirmation and risk factors of acute and chronic canine distemper in stray dogs in Wasit Province, Iraq, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction

“…A study by Bergmann et al . [ 44 ] reported that the survival of canine distemper virus in a stray dog population was constant at different ages, whereas Temilade et al . [ 24 ] demonstrated that the disease onset was more likely within the period from birth until 2 years of age.…”

Can the triumph of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 be extended to other viral infections of humans and domesticated animals?

“…A potential candidate for such control could be canine distemper virus (CDV), a cousin of measles virus. With CDV, although it is often not necessary, it is common to revaccinate, but the vaccination boost may be inhibited by residual immunity [ 96 ]. Such immunity would not be expected to interfere with a nucleic acid-based vaccine, so using a mRNA platform is a logical approach worthy of evaluation.…”

“…This interference is more an issue with some types of vaccine than others with live attenuated vaccines being the most susceptible. In veterinary medicine, for example there is often a need to revaccinate against CDV, a cousin virus of measles, but pre-existing immunity can interfere with the response [ 96 ]. This pre-existing immune inhibition should not be an issue with genetic vaccines particularly the mRNA vaccines since they will not be inhibited by pre-existing antibodies and only express proteins after the genetic material has entered cells and been expressed for processing to stimulate T cells.…”

Agreement between In-Clinics and Virus Neutralization Tests in Detecting Antibodies against Canine Distemper Virus (CDV)

“…Moreover, antibody titration could allow to identify the so-called non-responder dogs, meaning those dogs that are unable to mount a protective immunity after vaccination or pathogen direct contact (generally they fail to seroconvert to one of the core vaccine antigens, such as CPV-2 or CDV). In literature, it is reported that 1 out of 5000 dogs may be a non-responder to CDV [ 2 , 15 ]. For all these reasons, in recent years, serological testing has been progressively introduced in veterinary practices to know the real protection status of dogs.…”

“…The gold standard for detection of CDV antibodies in dogs is the virus neutralization (VN) test that is usually performed in specialized diagnostic laboratories [ 15 ]. However, the WSAVA guidelines supports the use of rapid serological in-clinic tests for the determination of antibody titers for core vaccines in dogs [ 5 ].…”