In another key step toward a vaccine against Zika virus, scientists have found that three different experimental vaccines are safe and effective in monkeys.
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One of the vaccines in development is called a Zika purified inactivated virus (ZPIV) vaccine, made by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR).
The vaccine candidate contains a circular piece of engineered DNA which contains genes that create Zika virus proteins designed to incite an immune response from neutralizing antibodies and T cells.
“A team of scientists here at NIAID worked tirelessly to rapidly develop this vaccine for clinical testing”, Dr. John Mascola, director of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center, said in the statement.
“Results from both the mouse and non-human primate testing are encouraging and support a decision to move forward with. our partners to advance our vaccine candidate to human trials”, said Col. Stephen Thomas, an Army infectious disease specialist. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also announced its human vaccine trial on Tuesday.
Researchers will observe the volunteers during a 44-week period after their first dose, to monitor their health and determine if the vaccine is safe.
“Or that infected person, a male, can have the Zika virus in his semen for two months”.
“These titers should be relatively achievable by these vaccine platforms in humans”, he said.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been linked to the birth defect microcephaly and has spread throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, prompting some top athletes to pull out of the Olympics.
Rep. Nita Lowey of NY, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said: “The urgency of enacting emergency Zika funding is growing by the day”.
They were found to initiate a robust protection against infection, when the animals were exposed to Zika virus strains.
Democrats are turning up the heat on GOP leaders to call off the rest of Congress’s recess to come back and deal with the Zika virus.
However, after the second injection, researchers detected Zika-specific neutralizing antibodies in the animals.
President Obama proposed a $1.9 billion emergency fund to combat the Zika virus, but the Republican-backed Congress did not approve the law. Without more money fast, she said, the “nation’s ability to effectively respond to Zika will be impaired”.
Fauci added that if the trial will get success, phase 2 trials would start in January.
“It’s very hard to predict timeframe as to when a vaccine might go through the arduous process of clinical trials and regulatory reviews, so I can’t give a date”, Barouch says.
How long could it be before any Zika vaccine is approved? “It builds on technology WRAIR developed and successfully applied to other flavivirus vaccines”.
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For those with plans to travel to areas affected by the Zika virus, several major airlines said they were changing their policies on refunds and flight changes.
