{"id":580855,"date":"2026-08-02T22:11:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/580855\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T22:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:11:28","slug":"breakthrough-vaccine-shows-promise-against-deadly-elephant-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/580855\/","title":{"rendered":"Breakthrough vaccine shows promise against deadly elephant virus"},"content":{"rendered":"

A more than 15-year collaboration between Baylor College of Medicine and Houston Zoo led to a breakthrough<\/a> in the fight against one of the deadliest diseases in young Asian elephants.<\/p>\n

Two<\/a> papers<\/a> published in July are the first peer-reviewed evidence of the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccine for elephants against elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV).<\/p>\n

The first study looked at a multi-antigen mRNA vaccine in nine Asian elephants at five institutions, including Houston Zoo. It showed that the vaccine generated a sustained immune response<\/a> against key viral proteins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other study gave researchers evidence of clinical protection from EEHV in two vaccinated juvenile elephants at Cincinnati Zoo.<\/p>\n

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Dr. Paul D. Ling, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine\u2019s Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, said the Houston Zoo approached him years ago after they had six young elephants die from EEHV.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were kind of at a crossroads,\u201d Ling said. <\/p>\n

When they first asked him for help, Ling said he thought about it for a few days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came down one morning, I looked at my wife and I said, \u2018Who wouldn\u2019t want to help save baby elephants?’\u201d Ling said in an interview with Straight Arrow.<\/p>\n

Ling, at the time, worked on human herpes viruses, including the ones that cause shingles and another that causes Epstein-Barr Virus. He told Straight Arrow he was able to use some of the knowledge he had from human herpes cases to inform the research on EEHV.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out herpes viruses have a lot of common themes with the way in which they\u2019re transmitted, the way in which they infect and remain latent for periods of time, and some of the diseases that they cause,\u201d Ling explained. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of common themes amongst them, so we were able to leverage that information for both in terms of thinking about a lot of the diagnostics and things that we developed early on, but then what we utilize to generate this first round of a vaccine that we\u2019ve implemented in the elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the vaccine works<\/p>\n

Houston Zoo Asian elephant Tess was the first of her species to ever receive the experimental EEHV mRNA vaccine.<\/p>\n

From there, Dr. Christine Molter of the Houston Zoo said, several other elephants in the Houston Zoo herd, as well as elephants at other institutions, were given the vaccination, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince that time, we were able to track their seroconversion, how well their bodies create antibodies to the vaccine \u2014 antibodies that are at a protective level,\u201d Molter said.<\/p>\n

What scientists are trying to do with the vaccine is not necessarily stop infection altogether, but give them a \u201cboost\u201d in their immunity to prevent clinical disease or lethality, Ling explained. <\/p>\n

\"\"Jackelin Reyna\/Houston Zoo<\/p>\n

When young elephants are born, they get antibodies from their mothers in utero. These antibodies can be protective if the elephants are exposed to the virus early on. But if they don\u2019t, these antibodies can wane over time, Ling said. <\/p>\n

Once they get down to a certain level, the elephants are particularly vulnerable to getting infected for the first time \u2014 and they don\u2019t handle the virus well. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo they either get really sick, or they\u2019ll get really sick and die,\u201d Ling said. \u201cSo the idea behind the vaccine is to reconstitute the immunity that they lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

For instance, in the case of the two elephants at the Cincinnati Zoo, Ling said they had no antibodies left from their mother, and were about six years old when they got vaccinated \u2014 making them particularly vulnerable. <\/p>\n

They both responded well to the vaccine in terms of their immune response, and then came a \u201cnatural challenge event\u201d where the elephants got infected from their herd mates. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey actually had the most optimal situation happen, which was they had a very low-level infection,\u201d Ling said. \u201cWhich, if you weren\u2019t looking, you wouldn\u2019t have even known that they were infected, and they recovered without any kind of clinical disease whatsoever, and did just fine. So that was the most optimal sort of circumstance. That\u2019s the way we would hope that the vaccine would work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Less sleepless nights\u2019<\/p>\n

The vaccine gives Houston Zoo confidence and security in feeling comfortable that its elephants will be protected from EEHV, Molter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, that means less worry, less sleepless nights, less nights wringing our hands nervously if there is something wrong with the blood work, because we know that they\u2019ve got protection, and that they\u2019re going to be OK,\u201d Molter said. \u201cThat\u2019s huge for a herd. It\u2019s huge for individual elephants, and it\u2019s huge for the people that care for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Tess, a 40-year-old Asian elephant at the Houston Zoo, has been given the first-ever dose of an mRNA vaccine created by virologists at Baylor College of Medicine to prevent the deadly elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) 1A\u2014a devastating viral disease in Asian elephants worldwide. (Jackelin Reyna\/Houston Zoo)<\/p>\n

In a world where elephants\u2019 habitats are changing, and scientists are still learning about the virus, \u201cthe vaccine really comes in and bridges the gap between maternal and self antibodies to make sure that that elephant is protected for the rest of their life,\u201d Molter added.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, our goal is to not only protect elephants in human care, but those in the wild that are suffering from the same virus, the same disease,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

By the end of the year, Ling says, 22 Asian elephants will be vaccinated at nine different U.S. institutions. And it won\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we had a lot of inquiries from people in other countries. So we\u2019re working actively now on exporting this vaccine for use in India,\u201d Ling said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at Thailand. We\u2019re looking at exporting it to Australia and Canada, and potentially the U.K., and we\u2019ve had some conversations with some other places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Round out your reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A more than 15-year collaboration between Baylor College of Medicine and Houston Zoo led to a breakthrough in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-580855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}