Major step towards a vaccine against a lethal disease that kills endangered tortoises

Researchers may have found the basis for a vaccine against a disease that threatens endangered tortoises. Over thirty years on from the initial discovery of the tortoise herpesvirus, a team of researchers has, for the first time, sequenced the complete genome of two strains of the virus TeHV-3, which is the most pathogenic of four species of herpesvirus that cause diseases in tortoises. The researchers have evidence strongly suggesting that the TeHV-3 virus exists in a non-lethal form, called m1, which may be the starting point of a vaccine.



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