Biology Newsfeed

[In Depth] The race for a Zika vaccine is on

ScienceNOW - Fetched: February 4th, 2016, 5:00pm UTC

Scientists first isolated Zika virus in 1947, but the disease it caused in humans was considered mild: It did nothing to 80% of the people it infected, and the ones who had symptoms only had temporary fevers and rashes. But last year, a high number of cases of brain-damaging microcephaly in newborns began to surface in Brazil in lockstep with the arrival of the Zika virus, which is spread by mosquitoes. The World Health Organization on 1 February declared these clusters of disease a "public health emergency of international concern," and a rush of vaccinemakers has jumped into the race to develop a preventive. Vaccines exist against several other flaviviruses, the family Zika belongs to, and experts predict that this won't be a major scientific challenge. They also say it may be possible to piggyback on the other flavivirus vaccines, like ones made for dengue and yellow fever. Then again, vaccine R&D takes time, and because this effort is starting from scratch, researchers say it will take at least a few years before a vaccine can prove itself safe and effective in large human efficacy studies. Author: Jon Cohen

Read more

Return to the Newsfeed