The paper was
written because of a perceived lack of interest at the time in the potential
for vaccination to contribute to the control of T. solium on the
part of many scientists who had an interest in the parasite, including
those who were turning their minds to the practicalities of various
disease control options. In 1999, a long term research program
had been on-going in the author’s laboratory on the use of oncosphere
antigens as vaccines against taeniid cestode infections. The
program had been extraordinarily successful, producing a vaccine
against cysticercosis in sheep caused by Taenia ovis, the world’s first
highly successful recombinant vaccine against any parasite (Johnson
et al., 1989). Subsequently a clear demonstration had been provided
that the lessons learnt in developing the T. ovis vaccine could
be applied to produce an effective vaccine against infection with a
related parasite species (Lightowlers et al., 1996b). The potential
implications for development of an effective vaccine against T. solium
infection seemed obvious. However the logic of this approach
was less than obvious to others and publication of the speculative
article in 1999 was intended to raise the stakes. The logical potential
for development and use of a vaccine to contribute to T. solium
control was not obvious to the assessors of a funding application to
the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the assessment of which intoned
that nothing more than praziquantel is needed for the control
of neurocysticercosis.
Fortunately however, the National Health and Medical Research
Council in Australia and the Wellcome Trust (United Kingdom) did
not take the same view as the NIH. The April 2010 issue of this
journal contains a paper detailing the complete elimination of
transmission of T. solium in pigs involved in a field trial of an oncosphere
antigen-based vaccine, TSOL18, carried out in Cameroon.
This publication (Assana et al., 2010) heralds a new era in T. solium
control; one in which the tools are available to attack transmission
through both the definitive and the intermediate hosts. Undoubtedly
many challenges still lie ahead, however the potential for control
of the parasite’s transmission has now been demonstrated
unequivocally. This brief review summarises the progress that
has been made to date with vaccination against T. solium, considers
the pros and cons of the various control options that are available
for T. solium, identifies some challenges that lie ahead and updates
disease control recommendations made in Lightowler