IMMUNIZATION AGAINST EAST COAST FEVER: BROAD BASED T. PARVA GENE DELIVERY/ANTIGEN PRESENTATION THROUGH MINI - GENE TECHNOLOGY

East Coast Fever (ECF), caused by Theileria parva, kills over one million cattle in sub-Saharan Africa each year , resulting in extreme financial hardship and food shortages for smallholder farmers. As an intracellular parasite, immune control of ECF is largely dependent upon the development a robust, MHC class I-restricted CD8+ T-lymphocyte response . The development of a vaccine for ECF is imperative; however, due to the complexity of antigen processing and presentation in outbred species, and the antigenic complexity of the parasite, all next generation vaccines tested to date have failed to reproduce premonition. The objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that immunization of cattle with a minigene library of selected T. parva genes provides protective immune responses against Theileria parva.