A vaccine produced against chikungunya maintained high levels of antibodies even a year after a dose was given. The result complements a clinical study that observed safety and the ability to generate an immune response by the vaccine.
The drug was developed by the Valneva laboratory in partnership with the Butantan Institute and, for now, it is the only vaccine with the potential to prevent infection. It was designed to be a single dose only and consists of an attenuated virus that does not have the ability to infect cells. According to Valneva, by deleting a part of the pathogen’s genome, it was possible to develop the drug.
In March of this year, a phase three research, the last stage of a clinical study, with 4,115 participants from the United States observed a rate of 96% of participants with production of antibodies against the pathogen six months after immunization.
Since then, the team of researchers followed 363 adults until they completed one year of vaccination in order to observe the levels of antibodies. Of those, 99% maintained high levels of immune response after 12 months of receiving the single dose. Furthermore, persistence in antibody levels was similar between participants over age 65 and those younger adults.
“These antibody levels confirm the antibody persistence profile observed in previous studies,” Valneva said in an official statement.
At the moment, the expectation of the laboratory is to finalize, by the end of this year, a license application for the vaccine at the FDA (Food and Medicines Agency), the body that regulates the approval of drugs in the United States.
“If our experimental vaccine is approved, we are confident that it can help address this large, growing and unmet threat to public health,” said Juan Carlos Jaramillo, medical director of the laboratory, in the official statement.
The virus that causes chikungunya is transmitted by aedes aegypti, even the mosquito that transmits dengue and zika. Fever, red spots, pain in the joints and head are some of the symptoms of the disease.
According to the latest epidemiological bulletin from the Ministry of Health with information from the week of November 20 to 26, Brazil has recorded more than 170,000 probable cases of the disease since the beginning of the year. Compared to 2021, there was an 80% increase in diagnoses for the same period.
Regarding deaths, Brazil already registers 85 this year. The number, however, may be higher: 20 deaths are suspicious and are under investigation in the country.
Brazilian study
In addition to the investigation already carried out in the United States, another clinical trial is being carried out in Brazil with the same vaccine. With the collaboration of Butantan, the study began in January of this year and is expected to last for 15 months.
The difference in the Brazilian version is that the focus will be on measuring safety and the ability to generate immunity in adolescents who had the disease and in those with no previous record of the infection.
In total, there are 750 research participants spread across ten research centers in different regions of Brazil.
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