Rodent plagues, immunocontraception and the mousepox virus

Rodent plagues cause a major problem for agriculture in many temperate regi ons, and immunocontraception offers a new method to control fertility in th ese and other pest vertebrates. However, it is difficult to find an effecti ve carrier for contraceptives for large numbers of pest animals in the fiel d. In a new study, Jackson et al. manipulated the mousepox virus to boost t he immune response in infected mice Mus musculus when testing the basis for controlling their fecundity rates. However, all infected mice land half of recently immunized mice died. Despite these unexpected and dramatic result s of the engineering of mousepox virus, immunocontraception remains the mos t promising method for fertility control and management of pest vertebrates .