Breakthroughs Blog: Zika

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.A study published last week found that an experimental influenza vaccine that uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology protected against all known flu subtypes in animals. If found to be successful in humans, the universal vaccine, which would serve as a supplement to annual flu shots, could prepare the immune system to better respond to new flu viruses, reducing the likelihood of severe disease and death. These promising results come after years of efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine. While human trials are expected to begin soon, challenges including potential low tolerability of the mRNA vaccine will need to be addressed before the candidate can progress.A recently published study estimated that approximately 7.7 million people were killed by bacterial pathogens in 2019—the second leading cause of death globally that year. More than half of these deaths resulted from five pathogens: Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. While the highest mortality rates occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, disproportionately high burdens are present throughout low- and middle-income countries, which could be linked to inadequate access to effective antimicrobials (which exist for all the bacteria investigated in the study), among other structural challenges. Despite the high burden of deaths associated with bacterial pathogens, they receive much less funding and attention compared to other diseases. These data underline the need for greater investment into a variety of interventions and innovations, including vaccine candidates, that can address drug-resistant bacterial pathogens.A recent study determined that an antibody (DH1017.IgM) found in pregnant women who were infected with Zika but did not pass the virus to their fetuses can protect mice from the virus and suppress it to an undetectable state in their blood. The study, which began during the 2015 Brazilian Zika outbreak, could lead to the use of the antibody as a therapeutic agent and prophylactic to protect at-risk patients during an outbreak. The research team is working next to discover whether the antibody can prevent transmission from pregnant mice to their offspring and hoping to progress to human trials that include pregnant individuals who are often excluded from drug trials. Preclinical research into other vaccine candidates for Zika are also underway.

In recognition of World Mosquito Day on August 20, 2021, GHTC is testing our readers’ knowledge of mosquito-borne diseases and ongoing efforts to develop treatments, vaccines, vector-control innovations, and other tools to outsmart the world’s deadliest animal. Find out if you have achieved mozzie mastery by taking our quiz below. Loading...(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k

In recognition of World Mosquito Day 2020, GHTC is testing our readers’ knowledge of mosquito-borne diseases and ongoing efforts to develop treatments, vaccines, vector-control innovations, and other tools to outsmart the world’s deadliest animal.Find out if you have achieved mozzie mastery by taking our quiz below.Loading...(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.  A vaccine candidate for gestational malaria, known as PRIMVAC, has yielded promising results in a small clinical trial evaluating its safety and effectiveness. PRIMVAC was shown to be well-tolerated and to elicit an immune response in 100 percent of the 68 non-pregnant women vaccinated after only two injections and for up to 15 months after the initial vaccination. Malaria is particularly dangerous to pregnant women because the red blood cells infected with the Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes malaria accumulate in the placenta, promoting anemia and gestational hypertension. Gestational malaria is also linked to a higher risk of spontaneous abortion, premature birth, and intrauterine growth delays leading to low birth weight and a high rate of neonatal mortality. Future clinical trials will focus on studying the immune response elicited by PRIMVAC longer term. Last Tuesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization of a diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that has emerged in China, sickening more than 20,000 people and killing 427 globally. This exemption will make the test—developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—available to public health labs across the United States and around the world in an effort to contain the disease’s spread. CDC has already shipped the test to a repository where states and international partners can order it. The nonprofit Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND)—which works to expand diagnostic capacity in low-resource countries—is now using viral isolates of 2019-nCoV to evaluate the CDC’s diagnostic test and others like it. Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) have shown for the first time that a single dose of an experimental Zika vaccine, ZPIV, in individuals previously infected by dengue can boost pre-existing immunity and elicit antibody responses against both Zika and dengue. This result was compared to trial volunteers with no prior exposure to dengue who required two vaccinations of ZPIV to reach a similar magnitude of Zika antibody responses. These findings indicate that an effective Zika vaccine could boost dengue virus immunity and generate Zika antibodies that have the potential to be a prevention tool in regions where both diseases are endemic. In three phase 1 human clinical trials the ZPIV vaccine, developed by WRAIR, has shown to be safe and well-tolerated in healthy adults and to induce a robust immune response.