An Intranasal Vaccination with a Recombinant Outer Membrane Protein H against Haemorrhagic Septicemia in Swamp Buffaloes.

Hemorrhagic septicemia (HS) is an important infectious disease in cattle and buffaloes, caused by B:2 and E:2. The intranasal recombinant OmpH-based vaccine was successfully used to protect dairy cattle from HS in a previous study. Thus, this study aimed to examine the protective ability of that vaccine among buffaloes. Four groups of Thai swamp buffaloes received different vaccines and were labeled as 100 or 200 g of the rOmpH with CpG-ODN2007, commercial HS bacterin vaccine, and nonvaccinated control groups. Sera and whole blood were collected to examine the antibody levels and cellular immune response using indirect ELISA and MTT assay, respectively. Challenge exposure was performed with virulent strain M-1404 serotype B:2 on day 72 of the experiment. The antibody titers to among immunized buffaloes were significantly higher than in the control group ( < 0.01), especially the 200 g of the rOmpH group. The stimulation index (SI) of the intranasally vaccinated groups revealed significantly higher levels than the nonvaccinated group ( < 0.01), but not different from the intramuscularly commercial HS vaccine. The clinical signs and high fever were observed after challenge exposure in the nonvaccinated group, while it was not observed among the 200 g of rOmpH immunized buffaloes. The other immunized groups showed partial protection with transient fever. In conclusion, the rOmpH-based intranasal vaccine could elicit protective ability and induce antibody- and cell-mediated immune response against virulent strain among swamp buffaloes.