It is the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, not Walter Reade Army Institute of Research. But there is some hope on the horizon: The National Institutes of Health just started the first human trials for an experimental vaccine for Zika. Without wasting any more time, Congress needs to make all this work possible. Since then, a third vaccine, using a harmless cold virus, has been developed, and all of them shielded nonhuman primates against the mosquito-borne virus in experiments reported this week in the journal Science.
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South Florida counties continue to spray insecticide, but health officials say aerial spraying is not as effective at eliminating the mosquitoes carrying the virus because it tends to live and breed near covered structures. Inovio Pharmaceuticals, a private biopharmaceutical company, administered its vaccine to its first subject last week. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also announced its human vaccine trial on Tuesday. As a matter of fact, the human trials has been started in Miami, but Fauci clarified that those DNA inserts are different from the ones they are using.
Efforts to develop a vaccine began after a massive Zika outbreak previous year in Brazil. These vaccines are made from genetically engineered material that contain instuctions for the body to make Zika virus proteins – which causes the body to begin an immune response against the disease.
All three, it turned out, spurred the monkeys’ immune systems to produce Zika-fighting antibodies. According to a press release, “The study is part of the United States government response to the ongoing outbreak of Zika virus in the Americas”. However, the eight monkeys that got the placebo became sick for about a week.
Yesterday, a collaboration of scientists including researchers from Harvard University and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, confirmed that tests of three vaccines had given complete immunity to rhesus monkeys. Reports state that one of these vaccines is scheduled to enter human studies in 2016. Monkeys were exposed to Zika virus four weeks after the final vaccination, and both the DNA and adenovirus vector vaccine provided complete protection against infection. Fauci said in a statement that is imperative to prevent Zika virus infection and the devastating birth defects that it causes in newborns.
So far, the only mosquitoes in America carrying the Zika virus are confined to one neat square mile north of downtown Miami.
More than 40 Senate Democrats sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan Thursday, asking the Republican leaders to reconvene Congress so lawmakers can pass funding to address the Zika virus.
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“It’s not going to be this year, for sure”, Barouch said.
