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USGS · 70037901

Sylvatic plague vaccine: combating plague in prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets

Tonie E. Rocke·Rachel C. Abbott
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Abstract

After achieving promising results in laboratory trials, researchers at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) and University of Wisconsin at Madison will soon begin field testing a new oral vaccine for sylvatic plague, a devastating disease affecting prairie dogs and other mammals, particularly the endangered black-footed ferret. Our team has developed and is currently registering a sylvatic plague vaccine (SPV) that uses raccoon poxvirus (RCN) to express two key antigens of the Yersinia pestis bacterium, the causative agent of plague.

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Tonie E. Rocke, Rachel C. Abbott. 2012. Sylvatic plague vaccine: combating plague in prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70037901

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