Summary
Contagious ecthyma is caused by the orf virus, a member of the family Poxviridae, genus Parapoxvirus. Morbidity in affected sheep flocks is approximately 100%, while mortality varies between 1% and 10%. A live attenuated vaccine was produced by the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise ‘G. Caporale’. Quality control was performed in accordance with the European Pharmacopoeia. A wild virus strain was attenuated through serial passages on primary chicken embryo fibroblast tissue cultures. The virus suspension was treated according to standard procedures and freeze dried. The immunising dose was 1 ml containing 10^4,5TCID₅₀, administered intramuscularly. The safety of the vaccine was successfully tested by intramuscular inoculation of 20 susceptible sheep and 20 lambs with the routine dose, 10 times the immunising dose and two normal doses administered at seven-day intervals. The efficacy of the vaccine was tested using three groups of susceptible animals. The first group included 10 lambs and the second 10 adult sheep; the animals were immunised intramuscularly with 1 ml of the reconstituted vaccine. The third group, used as controls, included five sheep and five lambs. Serological reactivity was monitored by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The animals were challenged 30 days later with a pathogenic strain administered intradermally along the labial area. Vaccinated animals did not show any clinical signs of disease, whereas all the controls developed typical signs of contagious ecthyma. To confirm the efficacy of the vaccine, a field trial was conducted in four flocks affected by the disease. The trial showed that the vaccine was able to block the normal course of the disease and induce rapid recovery.