Post vaccinal antibody titres specific for canine distemper virus and canine adenovirus in dogs vaccinated with selected commercial vaccines: A preliminary study

Vaccination of dogs against canine distemper virus (CDV) and canine adenovirus (CAV), are recommended to prevent severe disease outbreaks caused by those viruses. Antibody (Ab) titre testing has proven to be an effective method of monitoring immunity and determining whether re-vaccination is necessary. Postvaccinal immunoglobulin (IgG) titres specific for CDV and CAV with three selected commercial multivalent vaccines (A, B, and C) were evaluated in this study. When antibody titres of a total of 40 client-owned dogs (16 vaccinated with vaccine A, and 12 each with vaccine B and C) were tested three weeks after the primary vaccination using VacciCheck in-clinic test kit, only 33 yielded valid responses. Pair-wise comparison using the Kruskal-Walli’s test showed that vaccine C induced a significantly higher CDV-specific Ab titres (p = 0.001) than vaccine A or B. Both vaccines A and C induced significantly high levels of CAV-specific Ab titres (p =0.001) when compared to vaccine B. Vaccine B containing the Rockborn strain of CDV and Manhattan strain of CAV induced a very poor immune response against both viruses. Since many factors can affect the immune response elicited by a vaccine, selecting a reliable vaccine product is important to ensure a good immune response. The vaccine C produced by a leading manufacturer containing the viral titres of 1x104 TCID50 and 1x106 TCID50 or CDV and CAV, respectively was effective in inducing a protective humoral immune response in all dogs tested in this study.