Mucosal vaccination against influenza: protection of pigs immunized with inactivated virus and ether-split vaccine

Effective vaccinations against swine influenza reduce the economic loss of pig industries, and also may minimize the possibility of emergence of new pandemic viruses, since pigs are intermediate hosts to generate reassortant viruses among avian and mammalian influenza viruses. In this study, we showed that intranasal immunization of pigs with formalin-inactivated or ether-split influenza vaccine (A/Aichi/2/68) induced virus-specific IgG, IgM, and IgA antibodies in their nasal secretions and sera, resulting in complete protection from virus challenge. Antibody response to the challenge virus was not observed in the immunized pigs, suggesting that the replication of the virus in the primary targets, respiratory epithelial cells, was inhibited. The present results indicate that intranasal immunization of pigs with inactivated vaccines is effective to control swine influenza, and also provide a good model, as well as a mouse model, to evaluate an intranasal application of influenza vaccine for humans.