Info about Pan American Vet Labs' Vaccine for Pasteurella

[Dood]

Bacteria adapt and multiply much faster than rabbits, this is why we still have P.

 

[Frecs]

Bacteria adapt and multiply much faster than rabbits, this is why we still have P.

And bacteria and viruses that adapt readily are near impossible to vaccinate against...

 

[OneAcreFarm]

I'm very skeptical and very concerned that it is being used as a "cure" rather than a preventative.

From what I have seen and read, everyone is using it as a preventative at this point. A few breeders tried it out on ones who had white snot that were quarantined to see what it would do. Some had initial good responses but then the snot reappeared or got worse and those were culled.

And those are only the folks that are posting or writing about their results....how many others are using it as a "cure" because that is what they think it is and aren't telling anyone?

My main hesitation is the fact that the vaccinated rabbits in the study STILL CAME DOWN WITH PASTEURELLOSIS when they were given a challenge dose of P.Multocida. To me, that says that it does NOT prevent anything.

 

[Miss M]

My main hesitation is the fact that the vaccinated rabbits in the study STILL CAME DOWN WITH PASTEURELLOSIS when they were given a challenge dose of P.Multocida. To me, that says that it does NOT prevent anything.

That is a pretty glaring issue.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

My main hesitation is the fact that the vaccinated rabbits in the study STILL CAME DOWN WITH PASTEURELLOSIS when they were given a challenge dose of P.Multocida. To me, that says that it does NOT prevent anything.

That is a pretty glaring issue.

Now, granted, the symptoms were less severe and they SEEMED to recover afterward. However, SHOWING SYMPTOMS tells me they are infected, whether the symptoms went away or not. That happens with normal P infections as well, but they still carry it.

 

[TMTex]

Since my last update, the buck that was sneezing before being vaccinated continued to sneeze. I culled him and checked his lungs and general internals. Everything looked healthy and he was fed to the dogs, except for his organs. I'll cook them before the dogs get them, just to be safe.

I gave the doe who was vaccinated first her booster this evening. 2 days overdue, but within reason. Two others will be due a booster and two more will get their first vaccinations this weekend.

 

[Madpiratebippy]

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play on on TV, but I'm a biology nerd that's spent most my life around hospitals and doctors. The doctors of my acquaintance always tell me, when they first meet me, that I should go to med school, and then once they get to know me a bit better, tell me that I would never make it in residency, due to my... ah, shall we call it agressive and sarcastic personality? My inability to suffer fools would pretty much gaurentee that I'd fail out of residency. Immunology isn't as strong for me as some of the other things I get into, but since I've got a horse in the race (I'm mildly immunocomprimised, not HIV or anything exciting, left over effect from organ failure about 8 years ago), I've picked up a bit of information about how it all works to keep myself safe.

I'm very skeptical and very concerned that it is being used as a "cure" rather than a preventative.

Rabies vaccine is used, when caught early enough in the infection in a human, as a cure. There are a wide variety of vaccines that will produce cures if administered after the initial infection, however the testing process for that is so much more difficult and expensive than just testing for immune response before exposure to infectious agents, that it's pretty common for the medical profession to sort of look the other way and give the vaccine in the first place. That's why, for instance, you're not tested for any of the 4 strains of HPV before they give you the HPV shot, and no one is claiming that you might be able to be cured if you already have HPV before they give you the injection, but if it did resolve your HPV no one would be surprised at all.

If the post-infection vaccination cure rate testing is so expensive it's almost never done for human populations, much less veterinary medicine, where there's a lot less funding. I mean, the HPV vaccine prevents cancer in humans, no way rabbits are going to get that level of attention or funding!

I have not yet read the studies, so forgive me if this was addressed.

I have the same concerns as those stated above.

Given the fact that antibiotic therapy does not effect a cure due to limited blood flow to the sinuses, would not the same apply to the antibodies in the circulatory system? If they can't reach the sinuses and the resident bacteria, wont the animal always be carrying a possibly infective load of Pasteurella, though the rabbit itself is asymptomatic?

The real problem isn't the bloodflow to an area (although sinus infections are a pain in the butt to treat in humans because of the combination of mucus- lots and lots of bacteria food- and lack of direct blood flow and white cell activity, so I'm just going to assume it's the same in rabbits).

The real problem is that our bodies are very used to our friends, the helpful bacteria. I've read that up to 50% of a mammal's cells can be these friendly bacteria- so half the cells in your body might not be human cells, but a collection of symbiotic organisms to help you function. Your immune system dosen't kill these guys- think of the sharks from Finding Nemo saying "Lactobacillus are friends, not food!" and you've got a decent idea of how the immune system has to function.

The way a lot of bacterial infections manage to take over is that the outer protein layer of the cell isn't something that the immune system recognizes as a bad guy, so they let it slide, until it's waaaay to late. These sort of act like fingerprints, or locks (depending on their function) for the cells. If the immune system gets training that that particular fingerprint is a bad guy, they start taking them out before a large colony of them get going. My immune system is kind of butt tarded at this, which is why I'm moderately immunocomprimised. Every other immune system figures out that it's a bad guy at say, a million invading bacteria, and it takes my body until there's 50 million- in which case the infection is already a lot more intrenched, and it's a lot harder to get better after I've gotten sick.

If my kid brings home a cold, everyone else in the house will get it, and they all get sick for 3-4 days. It takes me 2-3 WEEKS to get over the same infection.

If your rabbit's immune system knows that Pasturella isn't a friend, it's going to start fighting the infection when it's small enough that it's body can easily handle it, instead of trying to play catch up when the body is already overwhelmed. So, your average rabbit without the vaccine is going to handle it like I handle a cold, where the rabbits that have the vaccine will be like everyone else in my family if they get exposed to it- their bodies will be able to take out the infection, vs. being taken out by the infection.

Just an update as requested.

One of my lactating Cali does was sneezing, most likely due to heat stress. I vaccinated her on June 20 and gave her 0.5cc oxytetracyline per day subcutaneously for 7 days. There was never any discharge. She sneezes every now and then, but they're still dry sneezes. A knot is forming at the vaccine injection site. Massaging the knot daily doesn't seem to have any effect. Otherwise, she seems fine.

I vaccinated our indoor pet rabbit (mutt) and a newly acquired Flemish Giant today (Saturday, June 29).

Small knots at vaccine sites are really common and nothing to be worried about. I almost always get them myself when I get a shot. I believe those are called benign granulomas. They go away in a week or so. I can also say that it's likely the buns will look a bit off their feed while their immune systems are learning how to fight this new infection- I'm always sick for 2-3 days after a shot. After a flu shot I get sore joints, slight fever, headaches, etc. The reason I still get them is if I got the flu WITHOUT the shot, instead of feeling mildly crummy for 3 days, I'd be sick for a month solid, and probably end up with another opportunistic infection at the same time. Last time that happened a cold turned into something else and I ended up with a kidney infection serious enough to dump me in the hospital.

I have to ask (I don't know enough about immunology in general, let alone in rabbits), would P be able to sufficiently colonize in the sinuses to cause a problematic infection? If the vaccine empowers the immune system, and it passes from the sinuses to the general bloodstream, wouldn't it then be fought off - removing the concern of transference via parasites?

If the animal is truly asymptomatic, the P wouldn't become airborne via sneezing/coughing, so the only outlet would be other bodily fluids?

Not trying to be argumentative. I'm simply curious on how the disease is transmitted/how the vaccine prevents transference from colonized sinuses as you asked.

[/quote]

Many diseases can morph how they are spread. There was a headline not too long ago about a mass grave in England where they buried Black Death victims, and someone pointed out that they looked like they were infected by airborne contamination- well, yes, but that's hardly tabloid front page news. Tracking down infection vectors for diseases is really tricky. We've been looking for the wild vector pool for Ebola for 30 years and haven't found it, for instance, and it took 10 years to figure out how HIV was spread. Black Death starts off as a rat/flea vector- fleas feed on infected rats, the rats die (fleas are fine), and then the fleas bite humans. The lymph is the primary target of Black Death, but lymph goes everywhere, and if it gets into the lungs, which is a secondary target, then it can spread through cough droplets. Voila, your flea-borne disease is now airborne.

Pasturella is primarily spread through droplets or bites. Here's my take on it:

IN MY NOT VERY HUMBLE OPINION, YOU ARE BEING INSANE IF YOU DO NOT VACCINATE AND YOU HAVE ANY OF THIS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSE:

• If you have someone in your house who will be interacting with the rabbits who is under the age of 10. The reason kids get so many upper respiratory infections when adults don't, is that their immune systems are still developing. Basically, you can treat a 7 year old kid or younger as an immunocomprimised adult.
• Any of the adults in your house are immunocomprimised. Functionally, this includes pregnant women, and people over 60. Their immune systems aren't at full blast. Even if the pregnant women aren't going to be handling the rabbits. Weird stuff happens to babies if their mothers get sick, even as adults. You're much more likely to be born in November or December if you're a schizophrenic. Turns out you mother getting the flu in the last trimester of pregnancy is a risk factor for mental illness in adulthood- and honestly, science just Does Not Really Understand how neonatal immune responses effect people in the long term. It is not worth the risk.
• Anyone taking care of the rabbits has Asthma or any chronic lung issues, that makes them much, much, much more susceptible to lung infections, especially from airborne diseases like Pasturella. Smokers, CPOD, Emphysema, and chronic bronchitis are a few of the giant warning flags you need to watch out for.
• You have cats, dogs, or chickens. All of them can carry Pasturella as part of their normal biota, but Pasturella is the guy that is kind of obnoxious who brings the really huge jerks to the party- in dogs, cats, and chickens it's not something that will kill them, but it leaves them more susceptible to a lot of other diseases.
• You raw feed to cats or dogs
• You don't have a closed rabbitry
• Your rabbits might sneeze on you, bite you, or scratch you- the three most common ways rabbits infect humans.
• You go to shows where you might be exposed, or your rabbits exposed, to Pasturella
• You don't have a closed herd and might bring other rabbits in.
• Anyone handling the rabbits is allergic to penicillin or tetracycline, which are the drugs most commonly used for Pasturella.

My kids are old enough they're not a consideration, but my immune system is not that great, hubby is down to less than a pack a month but has been a smoker for years plus he's allergic to tetracycline, and I want to feed culls to my dogs, I'm going to immunize my animals. It's just not worth the risk to me to possibly loose half my animals-or more- or even worse, end up sick myself.

I know some people don't like the thought of eating meat that has had vaccines in it, but when I compare that to the possibility of being on antibiotics for the next two months and too sick to go outside, I think I'm going to get less chemical exposure through the antibiotics. The risks of this vaccine compared to the risks of Pasturella are just way, way, way in favor of the vaccine.

I hope this was helpful to someone, if I said anything confusing or unclear, please let me know and I'll try to explain it better.

 

[dayna]

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play on on TV,

HA! You sound like me. I say that too.

I did choose to vaccinate all my rabbits. Before vaccinating we had snotty noses and some deaths. Since vaccinating (even vaccinating sick animals) all animals vaccinated recovered, no more snot illness.

So anyone can take that for what it's worth.

 

[Madpiratebippy]

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play on on TV,

HA! You sound like me. I say that too.

I did choose to vaccinate all my rabbits. Before vaccinating we had snotty noses and some deaths. Since vaccinating (even vaccinating sick animals) all animals vaccinated recovered, no more snot illness.

So anyone can take that for what it's worth.

:lol: Glad I'm not the only one who says that. I'm also glad that your snotty bunnies recovered, that's good anecdotal evidence that it'll help with immune system response issues even after initial infection.

 

[Dood]

IN MY NOT VERY HUMBLE OPINION, YOU ARE BEING INSANE IF YOU DO NOT VACCINATE AND YOU HAVE ANY OF THIS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSE:
.
.
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....The risks of this vaccine compared to the risks of Pasturella are just way, way, way in favor of the vaccine.

I think you need to read up a bit more of Pasturella multocida

Transmission

Dog and cat bites, scratches or licks are the most common cause of human infections with P. multocida. Pre-existing open wounds or scratches may also become infected with the organism. Infections have been associated with a range of other animals including rabbits and cows, however often the patient has had no animal contact. Animals do not have to be ill to pass the bacterium to humans, as they can carry the organism without showing symptoms.

Source - http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Infectious ... formation/

Unless your going to vaccinate ALL your animals and live in a bubble then its pretty pointless to vaccinate your rabbits to prevent the disease in humans.

 

[Madpiratebippy]

Unless your going to vaccinate ALL your animals and live in a bubble then its pretty pointless to vaccinate your rabbits to prevent the disease in humans.

My other animals are vaccinated, but a point that I might not have made as clear as it should have been- I've got a compromised immune system. Small, common infections like pasteurella can send me to the hospital. The whole family caught the sniffles. No one else was sick for more than 2-3 days. I was flattened for over 2 months, multiple rounds of antibiotics, which lead to other horrible things happening. The complications from that included a serious kidney infection, which was the most painful thing I've ever gone through in my life. People at the hospital thought I was in labor the way I was screaming when they had to move me (my husband got worried because I stopped telling jokes. I've had completely dislocated joints and a concussion and I never stopped cracking wise, so when I stop joking the pain is BAD). No one else in the house missed a day of school or work. :?

Does this sway my risk assesment? Oh, absolutely, which is why I try to make sure people know that's where I am coming from. I'm hyper sensitive to risks, but wouldn't you be, in my shoes? If I am going to keep animals I need to know what sort of zootonic diseases I'm exposing myself, and how to mitigate the risks as much as possible. I don't want to live in a bubble, but I can't run around like I'm not immunocomprimised and expect everything to be OK, either.

 

[Madpiratebippy]

(double post)

 

[Dood]

There is no pasturella vaccine for dogs and cats - that I know if :shock:

Your statement was

IN MY NOT VERY HUMBLE OPINION, YOU ARE BEING INSANE IF YOU DO NOT VACCINATE AND YOU HAVE ANY OF THIS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSE:

Perhaps you should amend it to ...IN MY NOT VERY HUMBLE OPINION, YOU ARE BEING INSANE IF YOU DO NOT VACCINATE AND YOU HAVE ANY OF THIS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSE ARE IMMUNO COMPROMISED

 

[dayna]

I must admit, that my daughter is immuno compromised and that did/does factor into what we vaccinate or try to vaccinate for animal/human wise around here and how we clean/sanitize. When she was 11 she got salmonella. Most kids would have had diarrhea for a day or two. She got medflighted from Alaska to Washington in a small jet with 3 flight nurses keeping her stable and then she was in quarentine/CCU for a week at Childrens in Seattle.

So every thing I do food, livestock, cleaning, vaccinating, etc I keep her in my mind. Which I figure is what Madpiratebippy does too.

 

[Madpiratebippy]

I must admit, that my daughter is immuno compromised and that did/does factor into what we vaccinate or try to vaccinate for animal/human wise around here and how we clean/sanitize. When she was 11 she got salmonella. Most kids would have had diarrhea for a day or two. She got medflighted from Alaska to Washington in a small jet with 3 flight nurses keeping her stable and then she was in quarentine/CCU for a week at Childrens in Seattle.

So every thing I do food, livestock, cleaning, vaccinating, etc I keep her in my mind. Which I figure is what Madpiratebippy does too.

That's horrible, your poor kiddo! I don't know if you've got them in your area/tried them, but the Danactive immune health yogurt drink and the Yakult yogurt stuff (for me they're in the dairy isle) have really, really helped with not getting sick as often. I have to explain to my kid that she can't just drink 2-3 at a time because she likes them, an 8 pack of the yogurts is almost as much as a gallon of milk, but I've been able to avoid getting as sick/bounce back a little faster when I take them regularly.

Your statement was

IN MY NOT VERY HUMBLE OPINION, YOU ARE BEING INSANE IF YOU DO NOT VACCINATE AND YOU HAVE ANY OF THIS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSE:

Perhaps you should amend it to ...IN MY NOT VERY HUMBLE OPINION, YOU ARE BEING INSANE IF YOU DO NOT VACCINATE AND YOU HAVE ANY OF THIS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSE ARE IMMUNO COMPROMISED

Um, immune system issues are the first and second bullet point. Not sure what else I could have done to make that more clear? :?: I'm confused about the link you posted from Public Health England, with pasturella death statistics- I'm not that concerned with the possibility of dying from Pasturella, just getting really sick at the same time I am loosing 50% of my rabbits. That'd be hard enough to deal with, with full energy, much less while I'm in pain, miserable, and tired.

From your link:

Complications include abscesses, cellulitis and joint infections. The organism can also infect the respiratory tract and cause sinusitis and ear infections, and more severe symptoms including pneumonia or lung abscesses in those with underlying pulmonary disease, however this is rare. Other uncommon presentations of P. multocida infection include septicaemia (blood poisoning), eye infections, meningitis and gastrointestinal problems. Very rarely, the infection is fatal: 5 patients with severe infection have died since 1993, the last occurring in 2006

That does not sound fun. The death statistics are low mostly because of how well it responds to penicillin (hence my point about being at higher risk if you can't take penicillin), but personally I'm more concerned with illness anyway. Joint infections really hurt, abscesses are horrible to recover from (I don't even want to THINK of what it would take to keep an abscess clean on a toddler), ear infections hurt, sinusitus sucks and every time I get it, I get a bonus ear infection anyway. Cellulitis can be horrible. Lung infections are nasty and take forever to get better from, and feeling like you're drowning for a month strait every time you try to get some rest will give you nightmares about suffocating for the rest of your life. I've never had septiceamia, but blood poisoning also sounds like an un-fun way to spend a week or four.

The pasturella vaccine has been used in food animals since the late 70's-early 80s and there has not been one case of any reactions in the people who've eaten the animals who were injected. So if the only thing you're worried about is your own death, statistically, the vaccine makes sense. If you don't want your animals to die and to have to go through any of the other crud, it's a slam dunk.

I'm more worried about getting sick myself and loosing my animals than dying, but the statistics are all the same. I'm not sure what else you'd like me to know about pasturella infections that would change my risk assessments? Even if I didn't have immune issues, my husband is allergic to the antibiotics that work (he's healthy as a horse), we would still vaccinate. Even if he wasn't allergic to antibiotics, I don't want my rabbits to die from something preventable, so vaccine is a go.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

The pasturella vaccine has been used in food animals since the late 70's-early 80s and there has not been one case of any reactions in the people who've eaten the animals who were injected. So if the only thing you're worried about is your own death, statistically, the vaccine makes sense. If you don't want your animals to die and to have to go through any of the other crud, it's a slam dunk.

I'm more worried about getting sick myself and loosing my animals than dying, but the statistics are all the same. I'm not sure what else you'd like me to know about pasturella infections that would change my risk assessments? Even if I didn't have immune issues, my husband is allergic to the antibiotics that work (he's healthy as a horse), we would still vaccinate. Even if he wasn't allergic to antibiotics, I don't want my rabbits to die from something preventable, so vaccine is a go.

I think you are misinformed....this rabbit vaccine is NOT the same vaccine that has been used in Swine, Cattle and other animals. This particular vaccine, BunnyVac, was only created in the last couple of years. Their are several different strains of P. Multocida and the one that commonly affects rabbits doesn't respond that well to penicillin. The go to drug for most vets is Baytril, but even THAT will only reduce the number of bacteria in the rabbits blood stream. After the antibiotics wear off, symptoms reoccur. P. Multocida colonizes the nasal passages and sinus cavities, which have very little blood flow to bring the vaccine to that area.

This vaccine has only been tested by the person that created it, on his own rabbits, and the lab that created it. It is still very new and in my mind, until they get some objective, third party testing done, it is not proven enough for me to risk using it. I prefer to deal with this by strict sanitation, quarantine and cull procedures.

 

[michaels4gardens]

some success has been achieved with nebulization treatments with gentamicin, along with flushing the duct that runs from the eye to the nasal cavity [to kill the bacteria colonized in there], when combined with gentamicin injections. -IMHO This treatment is only good for people who have pets that are not going to be around other rabbits to be re-infected or to infect other rabbits.
The theory in favor of immunization is sound and has been proven . The trial period for this vaccine is still rather short to suit me. But I am interested and hopeful it will be effective, with acceptable side effects.

 

[Miss M]

I can understand going with the vaccine if you or someone in the family is immuno-compromised; however, it's still basically experimental.

If you've downloaded and read the documentation at the beginning of the thread, you see that it's hardly been tested at all, like OneAcreFarm said.

 

[dayna]

I totally agree more testing needs to be done. I was actually surprised it was approved with so little testing. But with my small rabbitry it was worth it. If I had a lot more money invested it would not be worth it, and I would have stronger bio hazard type methods in place instead.

 

[michaels4gardens]

I totally agree more testing needs to be done. I was actually surprised it was approved with so little testing. But with my small rabbitry it was worth it. If I had a lot more money invested it would not be worth it, and I would have stronger bio hazard type methods in place instead.

Dayna, please tell us about your use of this, symptoms reduction or cessation,side effects, as well as breeding info, litter size comparison and grow out info, -- if / when you have some.