The effect of merthiolate on the inmunogenicity of foot-and-mouth disease virus antigens

Abstract

Merthiolate is commonly used as a preservative in commercial inactivated foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines. However, experiments with inactivated poliomyelitis vaccines have shown that degradation products of merthiolate can affect the virus antigen during storage of the vaccine (1). The effect of merthiolate can be neutralized by treatment with EDTA (trisodium salt of ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid). Precipitation reactions in agar gel with FMD virus also show deleterious effects of merthiolate (2).