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Lumpy skin disease, sheeppox and goatpox are high-impact diseases of domestic ruminants with a devastating effect on cattle, sheep and goat farming industries in endemic regions. In this article, we review the current geographical distribution, economic impact of an outbreak, epidemiology, transmission and immunity of capripoxvirus. The special focus of the article is to scrutinize the use of currently available vaccines to investigate the resource needs and challenges that will have to be overcome to improve disease control and eradication, and progress on the development of safer and more effective vaccines. In addition, field evaluation of the efficacy of the vaccines and the genomic database available for poxviruses are discussed.

Eleven lactating dairy cows were used to evaluate the response of bovine mammary glands to increasing doses of recombinant bovine interferon (rBoIFN)-gamma. Right front and rear quarters were intramammarily infused with eight different doses (10(2) U to 2 x 10(8) U/quarter) of rBoIFN-gamma; each dose was tested in at least two quarters. Left udder halves served as within animal controls in which quarters were injected with a saline placebo or were not infused at all. Milk secretion samples for compositional analysis were collected from each quarter prior to infusion and at 6, 24, 36 and 48 h following infusion. Animals were slaughtered immediately following the 48 h sampling period and mammary tissue was obtained for morphometric analyses. Milk composition was similar between control quarters and those quarters infused with up to 10(5) U of rBo-IFN-gamma during the entire sampling period. Quarters infused with 10(6) U and 10(7) U of rBoIFN-gamma had higher milk somatic cell counts (SCC) following treatment compared with preinfusion values. Changes in the composition of mammary secretion were most dramatic in quarters infused with greater than or equal to 10(8) U of rBoIFN-gamma as indicated by the significant increase in SCC and milk pH with a concomitant decrease in lactose concentration when compared with pre-infusion values or with control quarters. Morphometric analysis of tissue demonstrated an increase in stroma, a decrease in luminal area, and a marked increase in the number of infiltrating leukocytes in those quarters infused with the higher doses of rBoIFN-gamma.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Non-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) restricted cytotoxicity is an important part of the immune reaction mounted in response to bovine herpes virus type 1 (BHV-1) infection. In this study, we evaluated the effect of BHV-1 infection on the ability of lung parenchyma leucocytes (LPL), cranial tracheobronchial lymph node cells (BLNC) and peripheral blood mononuclear leucocytes (PBML) to mediate this function. While LPL from non-infected calves mediated cytotoxicity against BHV-1-infected cells, a similar activity could not be detected in PBML or BLNC. In contrast, both LPL and PBML from naive calves could mediate cytotoxicity against K562 target cells but only after activation with interleukin-2 (IL-2). BLNC were unable to kill K562 cells. Infection of calves with BHV-1 enhanced the ability of LPL and PBML to kill BHV-1-infected cells. This enhancement was detected as early as Day 1 after infection in LPL whereas it could only be detected in PBML 8 days after infection. The results demonstrate that the leucocyte population present at the site of infection was able to mediate a potentially important antiviral function and that this function was enhanced rapidly in response to infection. Thus LPL-mediated cytotoxicity may be an important mechanism for the recovery from BHV-1 infection.