Evaluation of tuberculin testing and measles prophylaxis procedures used in rhesus macaque quarantine/conditioning...

Twenty-three of 103 adult rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) entering NIH holding facilities with no history of measles vaccination or infection, no titer to rubeola virus, a minimum of four negative results of intrapalpebral tuberculosis tests, and negative for Herpesvirus simiae and type D retroviruses were selected to evaluate the adequacy of commonly used quarantine/conditioning protocol procedures. One month after sensitization by subcutaneous inoculation with 100 mg of killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis in oil, an intrapalpebral tuberculosis test was administered in the right eyelid. All animals had reactions that ranged from grade II to grade V. The animals were then randomly allotted to three groups. Ten animals were inoculated with a rubeola-containing veterinary vaccine (VET), 10 were inoculated with a human measles vaccine routinely used in macaque quarantine procedures (HUM), and 3 were used as unvaccinated controls. Intradermal tuberculosis tests were administered in the left eyelid and the skin of the abdomen at vaccination (day 0), and subsequent abdominal skin tests were performed on days 5, 14, and 28. In addition, intrapalpebral tests were conducted on day 28. A higher response in the rubeola antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) optical density (OD) results was observed in the VET-inoculated group at 14 days after inoculation. More significantly, two members of the HUM-vaccinated group had negative ELISA results after a single dose of vaccine. Three other members of the HUM-inoculated group had ELISA results that were near the OD cutoff value (0.15) and were retested by the measles indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) test.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)