On Thursday, the race to make a safe and efficient vaccine against the Zika virus has reached a step nearer to reality when a group of researchers reported positive findings in the latest testing round on monkeys.
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The DNA-based vaccine contains genetic pieces of the Zika virus.
The Hope Clinic of the Emory Vaccine Center will be one of three US study sites to participate in an NIH-sponsored clinical trial of a vaccine candidate meant to prevent Zika virus infection. Using immunoglobulin G (IgG) from the eight monkeys that had been vaccinated, the researchers injected Zika-naive rhesus monkeys with the vaccine-elicited, Zika-specific IgG, and saw an immune response and protection against Zika virus, even in animals that had relatively low titers of the virus in their blood.
Public health officials, however, had already been on the cases, looking for a vaccine.
Fauci said it takes time to prove that a vaccine works. DNA vaccines do not contain infectious material-so they can not cause a vaccinated individual to become infected with Zika-and have been shown to be safe in previous clinical trials for other diseases. A month after the booster, the monkeys got a dose of Zika virus. At least 15 people are now infected with the virus mainly in Wynwood neighborhood in Miami-Dade County.
The latest case has officials anxious that mosquitoes are spreading the virus beyond the Wynwood neighborhood, the Herald reported. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said.
The vaccine being tested in people in the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases trial is also a DNA vaccine. The virus can cause serious birth defects such as microcephaly.
It’s impossible to argue that fighting Zika is not a task for government, and it’s very hard to say that more money is unnecessary or wasteful.
The researchers hope to test the vaccine in people by October, Barouch said.
Yet lawmakers left Washington in mid-July for a seven-week recess without approving any of the $1.9 billion President Barack Obama requested in February to develop a vaccine and control the mosquitoes that carry the virus.
Mosquito-control efforts in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood have been hard because it’s a mixed-use area, where industrial sites are located next to a blend of residences and businesses, Frieden said. Some form of federal intervention is necessary in order to control the spread of the disease and to eliminate the Aedes aegypt mosquito that carries it. It is now spreading in 50 countries and territories, mainly in Latin America, the Caribbean and Florida.
A Science research article published yesterday (Aug. 4) shows that scientists may be on the right path to beat the Zika virus. And he took a jab at McConnell on Tuesday evening, predicting the Senate would move hurriedly if a transmitted Zika case is reported in Kentucky, McConnell’s home state. These infections are thought to have occurred because the patients’ partners had traveled to countries where Zika is circulating, the CDC said. It can also cause microcephaly in the fetus. Please see our terms of service for more information.
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The long-term effects of Zika remain relatively unknown.
