Professor Dan Barouch, from Harvard Medical School, US, who led the study, said: “Three vaccines provided complete protection against Zika virus in non-human primates, which is the best animal model prior to starting clinical trials”.
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The experiment involved a traditional vaccine and two more cutting-edge ones.
But researchers warn that an approved-vaccine for humans could still be years away.
However, the researchers note, that one thing missing from these initial studies is the effect other flavivirus infections could have on the effectiveness of the Zika vaccine.
Researchers reported the success in monkey studies Thursday in a paper released by the journal Science.
Despite the fact that approving a vaccine in the United States is a process that generally takes years, authorities have chose to accelerate the process because of the health emergency posed by the spread of the Zika virus in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The vaccine being subjected to the testing was developed by government scientists and is similar to another vaccine being tested to combat the West Nile virus, with both diseases transmitted by infected mosquitoes, the entity said. It was injected into eight rhesus monkeys and followed by a booster shot a month later.
Earlies this week, the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced it has launched a clinical trial of a Zika DNA vaccine in humans aimed at evaluating its safety and ability to generate an immune system response.
The vaccine - spearheaded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - is genetically engineered with DNA from Zika itself. “I think so far we’re seeing the administration ask for things they don’t need and then refuse to accept what the Congress is willing to give them”.
“Under ordinary circumstances it can take 10-years or more before a vaccine starts clinical testing and makes it to market”, Neuzil said.
And a lot of vaccines get left on the table, like for the corona virus, SARS, MERS, Nipah and Ebola.
CDC Director Tom Frieden says they are encouraged by the aerial spraying of insecticides to control Zika in a Miami neighborhood, but the “intensive effort” is not over. One, known as a purified inactivated virus (PIV) vaccine, contained a killed Zika virus. Importantly, the authors wrote, it showed that even very low levels of antibodies (produced in response to the vaccines) were effective enough to protect the monkeys from being infected with Zika.
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Right now, no licensed vaccine is based on DNA or adenovirus technology, he noted. The monkeys were administered with a dose of the Zika virus after a month, the researchers noted that none of the monkeys showed any symptoms of the infection.
