DIVA Vaccines and Companion Diagnostics with Relevance in Animal Disease Eradication

The present review deals in a nutshell with DIVA (Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals; also termed marker) vaccines and the companion diagnostic tests that have been developed for use in progammes intended towards the control or eradication of viral diseases. DIVA vaccines, the boon of modern science enables the distinction between an animal that is seropositive to a particular infectious agent because it has been vaccinated, and one that is seropositive because it has been infected with virulent field pathogens. These DIVA vaccines are important tools in assessing the effectiveness of vaccination programmes, without the time-consuming and cumbersome task of individual evaluation of infectivity. Such DIVA vaccines and their companion diagnostic tests are available or in development for several diseases including infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, pseudorabies, classical swine fever, foot-and-mouth disease, West Nile virus, Newcastle disease virus, avian influenza etc. This DIVA concept used in veterinary vaccines may prove to be a useful strategy for the future development of human vaccines.