Integrated BioTherapeutics, Inc., Gaithersburg, MD 20878;
New Iberia Research Center, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, New Iberia, LA 70562-3610;
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jun 17;111(24):8873-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1316902111. Epub 2014 May 27.
Infectious disease has only recently been recognized as a major threat to the survival of Endangered chimpanzees and Critically Endangered gorillas in the wild. One potentially powerful tool, vaccination, has not been deployed in fighting this disease threat, in good part because of fears about vaccine safety. Here we report on what is, to our knowledge, the first trial in which captive chimpanzees were used to test a vaccine intended for use on wild apes rather than humans. We tested a virus-like particle vaccine against Ebola virus, a leading source of death in wild gorillas and chimpanzees. The vaccine was safe and immunogenic. Captive trials of other vaccines and of methods for vaccine delivery hold great potential as weapons in the fight against wild ape extinction.
传染病最近才被认为是濒危黑猩猩和极度濒危大猩猩在野外生存的主要威胁。疫苗是一种潜在的强大工具，但尚未用于对抗这种疾病威胁，这在很大程度上是因为担心疫苗的安全性。在这里，我们报告了据我们所知，首次在圈养的黑猩猩身上进行了一项试验，该试验旨在测试一种用于野外猿类而非人类的疫苗。我们测试了一种针对埃博拉病毒的病毒样颗粒疫苗，该病毒是野生大猩猩和黑猩猩的主要死亡原因。该疫苗是安全且具有免疫原性的。其他疫苗和疫苗接种方法的圈养试验具有很大的潜力，可以成为对抗野生类人猿灭绝的武器。
