Veterinary Research Communications, 29(Suppl. 2) (2005) 229–231 DOI: 10.1007/s11259-005-0049-6 C  Springer 2005 Vaccination Trials Against Bovine Herpesvirus-1 G. Castrucci 1,∗ , M. Ferrari 2 , D. Salvatori 3 , S. Sardonini 4 , F. Frigeri 5 , S. Petrini 1 , M. Lo Dico 1 , C. Marchini 6 , A. Rotola 7 , A. Amici 6 , M. Provinciali 8 , A. Tosini 2 , R. Angelini 4 and E. Cassai 7 1 University of Perugina; 2 Zooprophylaxis Institute, Brescia; 3 Royal Veterinary College, London, UK; 4 A.S.L. 1, Pesaro; 5 University of Udine; 6 University of Camerino; 7 University of Ferrara; 8 INRCA, Ancona, Italy ∗ Correspondence: E-mail: stefano petrini1@virgilio.it Castrucci, G., Ferrari, M., Salvatori, D., Sardonini, S., Frigeri, F., Petrini, S., Lo Dico, M., Marchini, C., Rotola, A., Amici, A., Provinciali, M., Tosini, A., Angelini, R. and Cassai, E., 2005. Vaccination trials against bovine herpesvirus-1. Veterinary Research Communications, 29(Suppl. 2), 229–231 Keywords: bovine herpesvirus-1, calves, latency, vaccines Abbreviations: BHV-1, bovine herpesvirus-1; MLV, modified live vaccines; i.m., intramuscularly; i.d., intra- dermally; i.n., intranasally; DMS, dexamethasone INTRODUCTION The heavy economic losses in the cattle industry due to infection caused by BHV-1 led several countries to consider the possibility of eradicating the infection. Considering the high prevalence of seropositive animals among cattle populations (Castrucci et al., 1998; Panton et al., 1998; Van Wuijckuise et al., 1998), the vaccination appears to be the most realistic strategy in order to reduce the spread of this virus. In the last few years several studies on BHV-1 vaccinology have been performed (Babiuk et al., 1999), including a number of investigations conducted since 1997 by our group on the safety and efficacy of nine vaccines. Eight of these were commercial products and one was an experimental BHV-1 DNA vaccine prepared in our laboratory. MATERIALS AND METHODS The first part of the project consisted in the study of eight vaccines which were selected from those generally used against BHV-1. One vaccine (vaccine A) was a live strain of BHV-1 gE negative; whereas of the other seven products, four (vaccines B, C, D, E) were MLV, two (vaccines F and G) were inactivated vaccines and one (vaccine H) consisted of BHV-1 subunits. Eight distinct and identical experiments, were carried out, one for each vaccine under study. Calves that had been vaccinated 30 days earlier, were housed together with calves experimentally infected with BHV-1. Subsequent tests were carried out to verify the possibility of the vaccines containing live virus becoming latent. To this end vaccinated calves were subjected to DMS treatment, 3 months post-vaccination. When virus reactivation was observed, the isolates were subjected to a number of tests to determine 229