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May 05, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Edible Vaccine Might Help Curb Dysentery"

Newport News Daily Press (Va.) (www.dailypress.com) (05/02/03)

According to Dr. Bill Petri, amebic dysentery kills between 40,000 people and 100,000 people worldwide every year.  The University of Virginia, where Dr. Petri is a professor of medicine, is researching the possibility of cultivating plants and vegetables that would contain the vaccine against dysentery.  He suggests that a vaccine is the best way to fight amebic dysentery, because once children are infected by the parasite that causes the illness, they develop lifelong immunity.  [Because the disease causes life-long immunity, it is thought that the antigen in the vaccine could cause prolonged immunity.]  Already, Dr. Petri and his colleagues have developed tobacco plants that contain a dysentery vaccine in their leaves, and they are now growing tomato plants that contain the vaccine, working to make sure that the level of vaccine expressed in the leaves is high enough to be effective. 

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