Via CIDRAP, Lisa Schnirring writes: Animal study suggests vaccines block in-utero Zika transmission. Excerpt:
Researchers today reported the first animal trial results suggesting that Zika vaccines may prevent females immunized before pregnancy from passing the virus to their offspring.
In other Zika developments, a human rights group said yesterday that the Zika outbreak in Brazil revealed sanitation and public health gaps that pose threats to residents, especially women, and India's government announced a plan to start screening infants for Zika-related microcephaly.
Two vaccines show promise in mouse experiments
For the study, a team from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and their partners at the Washington University School of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical Branch tested two experimental Zika vaccines, immunizing female mice before breeding them, then testing for the virus in the resulting fetuses. Their results appear today in the early online edition of Cell.
A vaccine that can offer sterilizing immunity—preventing all Zika infection—is crucial for preventing viremia in mothers and resulting birth defects in babies. The US government is supporting the development of several candidate Zika vaccines to improve the chances of having one available by 2018 to protect at-risk populations. In developing a Zika vaccine, researchers are faced with the need for one that can provide fast and durable immunity with a good safety profile—with as few doses as possible to help streamline vaccination campaigns, especially in developing countries.
The two experimental vaccines assessed were a live-attenuated vaccine developed by UTMB and a novel messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine developed by Moderna. One group of nonpregnant female mice received two doses of mRNA vaccine 28 days apart, with a control group receiving two doses of placebo on the same schedule. Another group got a single dose of live-attenuated vaccine, while a control group received a single dose of placebo.
Both of the vaccines prompted high levels of neutralizing antibodies against Zika virus in the female mice.
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