A study in ferrets finds that inoculation with a weakened form of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus, also known as SFTSV, an emerging tick-borne pathogen in East Asia with a high mortality rate and no approved therapy or vaccine, stimulated a protective humoral immune response with a single dose and no clinical disease or mortality in healthy animals, and protected ferrets from a subsequent lethal exposure to the virus.
Article #19-14704: "Cross-genotype protection of live-attenuated vaccine candidate for severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus in a ferret model," by Kwang-Min Yu et al.
MEDIA CONTACTS: Benjamin Brennan, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre For Virus Research, UNITED KINGDOM; e-mail: < Ben.Brennan@glasgow.ac.uk >; Young-Ki Choi, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, SOUTH KOREA; email: < choiki55@chungbuk.ac.kr >
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences