2023-12-03 07:31:13
Although the circulation of the virus is decreasing, the Zika virus, transmitted by mosquitoes, has spread to 40 Latin American countries, causing more than 1.5 million confirmed or suspected cases over a period of 6 months during the year 2016. The World Health Organization (WHO) then declared the Zika epidemic a public health emergency of international concern. Today the infection remains endemic in several countries in the Americas.
While the infection usually causes mild illness, during pregnancy it can lead to miscarriage and stillbirths or birth defects. Zika virus infection is also associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults and children.
The main author, Dr Danushka Wijesundara, researcher at the Vaxxas biotech company, who developed the prototype, recalls that while the Zika virus still represents a risk for populations in the Pacific, South-East Asia, India, Africa, and South and Central America, there is no specific treatment for Zika virus infection or disease: “we can change the way we fight the virus with this effective, painless, simple to apply and easy to store vaccination method.”
There is currently no authorized vaccine
The vaccine candidate targets a protein inside the virus rather than outside, meaning it does not target symptoms of closely related viruses such as dengue in vaccinated people at this stage. However, researchers hope, the vaccine and the microneedle patch designed for its delivery might find broader applications than once morest the Zika virus. Indeed, the targeted protein plays a central role in flavivirus replication, so it will likely be possible to adapt the approach to target other flaviviruses. Finally, a “universal” type vaccine might be developed in the longer term to target the entire flavivirus family.
How it works ? The patch delivers the vaccine to immune cells beneath the skin’s surface through thousands of tiny microprojections.
This first preclinical studycarried out in the mouse model of infection, confirms that:
the vaccine provided rapid protection once morest live Zika virus, by targeting a specific protein called “NS1”, essential for the survival and replication of the virus; thus, the patch induced T cell responses approximately 270% higher than those obtained with needle or syringe vaccine delivery.
One of the main advantages of the vaccine candidate + patch combination is the stability of the whole at high temperatures, i.e. at 40 degrees Celsius for a maximum of 4 weeks.
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