Research at the Pirbright Institute reveals that the foot-and-mouth disease virus interacts with immune cells in tissues called lymphoid tissues, which are an essential part of the immune system.
This helps the virus to persist in animals such as African buffalo and allows these animals to become ‘carriers’ of the disease, which in turn poses a risk to other susceptible livestock.
Understanding how the animal immune system fights FMDV may provide further insight into how to create vaccines that give long-lasting immunity…
