3 vaccines prevent Zika infection in monkeys; vaccine trial in humans gets underway
One day after U.S. health officials announced an early start to a clinical trial to test a Zika vaccine in humans, researchers reported in the journal Science that three different types of vaccines designed to block the virus all worked to perfection in monkeys.
The three experimental vaccines had already proven effective in mice, and their success on rhesus monkeys is "raising optimism for the development of a (Zika) vaccine for humans," the study authors wrote.
With more than 50 countries and territories battling active Zika outbreaks, the need for a vaccine is clear. Hundreds of thousands of people have been infected, including more than 6,400 people in the U.S. and its territories.
The vaccine being tested in people in the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases trial is also a DNA vaccine. It contains genes that cause a person's cells to make Zika virus proteins. Once those proteins are assembled, the body's immune system should respond by making antibodies and T cells capable of neutralizing the Zika virus. That way, if an actual Zika infection occurs, the body will be ready to fight it.
_Los Angeles Times
