Metropolis Report –
An extensive new trial of the chikungunya vaccine candidate from the French-Austrian pharmaceutical company Valneva has yielded encouraging findings, according to a report published on Tuesday. Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne illness that occasionally breaks out around the world.
Although the trial was conducted on participants in the United States, where the infection is extremely rare, experts said additional research was required despite the positive results being hailed as excellent news in the fight against chikungunya.
The virus, which seldom causes death but produces fever and occasionally crippling joint pain has no immunizations or therapies.
After applying for clearance in the US and Canada, Valneva claims that its vaccine candidate, known as VLA1553, is the first to be examined by the health authorities.
The new phase three randomized, placebo-controlled experiment sought to determine the frequency with which an immune response was elicited by the live-attenuated vaccine, which uses a weaker strain of the virus.
According to research in the journal The Lancet, 263 out of a subgroup of 266 patients who received the vaccine—or 99 percent—developed antibodies that could neutralize the chikungunya virus.
The single-shot vaccination was declared “generally safe” with adverse effects comparable to previous vaccines in a larger experiment involving 4,100 healthy adults.
According to the study, just two individuals experienced severe adverse reactions related to the vaccine, and both made a full recovery.
The study’s principal author, Dr. Martina Schneider, clinical strategy manager for Valneva, termed the findings “promising.”
She stated in a statement that “this may be the first chikungunya vaccine available for people living in endemic regions, as well as for travelers to endemic areas or areas at risk for an impending outbreak.”
According to the research, 263 out of a subgroup of 266 patients who received the vaccine—or 99 percent—developed antibodies that could neutralize the chikungunya virus.
Public health professionals worry that chikungunya could pose a future pandemic threat if climate change drives the disease’s transmitting insects into new geographic areas.
The new study is “good news for chikungunya virus pandemic preparedness,” according to Dr. Kathryn Stephenson, an infectious disease specialist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US.
As can happen with such live-attenuated doses, the vaccine might be less effective in locations where chikungunya immunity has already developed.
Chikungunya has been documented in more than 110 countries since it was first discovered in Tanzania in 1952, according to the World Health Organization.
There are sporadic, severe outbreaks in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
The US Food and Drug Administration may decide whether to approve the vaccine around the end of August, according to Valneva.
Additionally, the business is conducting vaccination trials in endemic areas of Brazil among teenagers.
The Brazilian experiment, as well as additional studies carried out during real chikungunya outbreaks, according to Dr. Stephenson, were “crucial” to prove the vaccine’s efficacy.
Phase three studies are also being conducted for a chikungunya vaccine candidate produced by Bavarian Nordic in Denmark.
Source – The Straits Times
