Combatting peste des petits ruminants: Vaccines and future hopes

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a disease with its high morbidity and mortality rates is one of the most destructive transboundary viral diseases affecting small ruminants. The disease is caused by the PPR virus (PPRV) which encodes six structural proteins, out of which Nucleoprotein is the most immunogenic but elicits the production of non-neutralizing antibodies; while Haemagglutinin and Fusion proteins elicit a protective neutralizing antibody response. Currently live attenuated Nigeria 75/1 strain vaccine is used for control of PPR worldwide while Sungri 96 strain is predominantly used in India. Even though these vaccines are effective in providing protection against PPRV in sheep and goats, they cannot differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals (DIVA). The ability of vaccines to allow this differentiation is believed to play a key role in PPR control and eradication programs and as such the focus of many researchers is to develop an effective DIVA vaccine. The current article provides an overview of PPR and discusses various vaccines for the control of PPRV infection with a focus on its eradication.