Zika vaccine shows positive results during immune response studies

Encouraging results have stemmed from human testing of a Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) developed Zika vaccine.

In three separate trials, a Zika purified inactivated virus was introduced into 67 otherwise healthy adults. All were able to tolerate it with no adverse effects, and more than 90 percent of volunteers gained an immune response to the virus. In each case, a separate question was investigated: background immunity, vaccine dose, and vaccine schedule. All passed. A fourth trial is still being conducted in Puerto Rico, but all initial findings were published in The Lancet.

“It is imperative to develop a vaccine that prevents severe birth defects and other neurologic complications in babies caused by Zika virus infection during pregnancy,” said Kayvon Modjarrad, WRAIR’s director for Emerging Infectious Diseases, the Zika program co-lead, and the article’s lead author. “These results give us hope that a safe and effective vaccine will be achievable.”

Over the course of the study, researchers found that antibodies from vaccinated volunteers also protected mice from the virus.

Tests were conducted via two separate injections, with four weeks passing between each. The ZPIV vaccine was first thought up in February 2016, with Phase 1 human trial advanced by November of that year. The next step in the research is to evaluate how long the immunities created by the vaccine last, the impact of dosage on that immunity, as well as schedule and background immunity.