H7 avian influenza virus vaccines protect chickens against challenge with antigenically diverse isolates

Vaccination has been a critical tool in the control of some avian influenza viruses (AIV) and has been used routinely in Pakistan to help control sporadic outbreaks of highly pathogenic (HP) H7 AIV since 1995. During that time, several AIV isolates were utilized as inactivated vaccines with varying degrees of success. In order to evaluate which H7 AIV strains may serve as optimal vaccines for diverse H7 AIVs from Pakistan we conducted vaccination-challenge studies with five H7 vaccines against challenge with two HPAIVs: A/chicken/Murree/NARC-1/1995 H7N3 and A/chicken/Karachi/SPVC-4/2004 H7N3. To further characterize the isolates antigenic cartography was used to visually demonstrate the antigenic relationships among the isolates. All vaccines provided similar protection against mortality, morbidity and shedding of challenge virus from the respiratory tract. However, some minor (not statistically significant) differences were observed and correlated with antibody levels induced by the vaccine prior to challenge.