When Will a Zika Virus Vaccine Be Launched?

The Zika virus, for a lot of people, is a mild infection that doesn’t cause too much harm. However, with pregnant women, it can be really harmful to the unborn child. The most common birth defect is microcephaly, causing babies to be born with abnormally small heads. Scientists haven’t yet found an effective vaccine. Read on for a look at whether the launch of a Zika vaccine is soon or in the distant future.

Human testing

Zika is a vector-borne disease. This means it’s spread by infected arthropods, such as – and most commonly – mosquitos. In most cases, as mentioned, it’s symptomless. It’s the minority of cases in pregnant women that are a cause for concern. The search for a vaccine does not require pregnant women for testing, however, as the virus takes the same form.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have launched the first testing on humans for a vaccine against the Zika virus. With eight volunteers, the vaccine testing began in August. That’s the good news, what about the bad? The vaccination testing process can be very lengthy. In this case, the test subjects will be monitored for two years.

More promising

Inovio, a US Pharmaceutical firm, have also begun testing a Zika vaccine on humans. Similar to the one being trialled by NIAID, the vaccine is DNA-based. This means the vaccine is made from DNA. A vaccine of this kind has never been licenced for human use before. In contrast, PIV vaccines are made by growing, killing and purifying cells of the virus.

The laboratory-based PIV method is thought to be more likely to “go the distance”, according to researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Fortunately, a PIV vaccine has recently been successful in tests with rhesus monkeys. It protected the monkeys from two strains of the virus – from Brazil and Puerto Rico. Human testing of this PIV vaccine will start in October 2016.

Blood-borne

While Zika is vector-borne, other viruses, like HIV and hepatitis B, are blood-borne. They are spread through contamination by blood as well as other bodily fluids. With around 15 million HIV carriers estimated around the world, there is a call for much wider blood collection and sampling. ‘Testing Blood-Borne Viruses: the reach for wider sampling’ looks at the issues surrounding this kind of disease and the benefits of increased testing.