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Fragment of Yellow Fever Virus May Hold Key to Safer Vaccine
June 17, 2005In one of the first molecular studies of the human antibody response to yellow fever, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers and their colleagues have found the crucial bit of virus that people's immune systems need to spot and quash this often-fatal re-emerging disease.
The findings may help scientists improve the existing vaccine, which has rare but severe side effects, said Jan ter Meulen, an HHMI international research scholar and associate professor of virology at Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands.
The group has identified a specific region on one of the viral proteins that elicits an immune response. Antibodies produced by the immune system interact with this part of the protein, known as a neutralizing epitope, to fight off infection.
To protect people from the disease, yellow fever vaccines must contain this essential fragment of instruction to the immune system, said ter Meulen, senior author of a study published in the July 5, 2005, issue of the journal Virology and published early online.
These days, the horror of Ebola or Marburg hemorrhagic fever grabs more attention, but yellow fever is the original viral hemorrhagic fever. It strikes more than 200,000 people a year, mostly in Africa, killing about 30,000 of them, the World Health Organization estimates. No drug treatment is effective against the virus.
Since yellow fever is spread by mosquitoes, much of America has been safe from the disease thanks to control efforts aimed at the insects and a highly effective vaccine that has been available for 60 years. Vaccination is the key strategy for people living in and traveling to tropical Africa, South America, and several Caribbean Islands, where yellow fever is endemic.
In the last 20 years, however, yellow fever has been on the rise, mostly due to the lapse of immunization programs in high risk areas. More recently, serious and potentially fatal side effects from the vaccine have been reported, mainly in elderly persons in northern Europe.
"Yellow fever research was neglected because the vaccine was so effective," ter Meulen said. \\\\\\\
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
To protect people from the disease, yellow fever vaccines must contain this essential fragment of instruction to the immune system, said ter Meulen, senior author of a study published in the July 5, 2005, issue of the journal Virology and published early online.
These days, the horror of Ebola or Marburg hemorrhagic fever grabs more attention, but yellow fever is the original viral hemorrhagic fever. It strikes more than 200,000 people a year, mostly in Africa, killing about 30,000 of them, the World Health Organization estimates. No drug treatment is effective against the virus.
Since yellow fever is spread by mosquitoes, much of America has been safe from the disease thanks to control efforts aimed at the insects and a highly effective vaccine that has been available for 60 years. Vaccination is the key strategy for people living in and traveling to tropical Africa, South America, and several Caribbean Islands, where yellow fever is endemic.
In the last 20 years, however, yellow fever has been on the rise, mostly due to the lapse of immunization programs in high risk areas. More recently, serious and potentially fatal side effects from the vaccine have been reported, mainly in elderly persons in northern Europe.
"Yellow fever research was neglected because the vaccine was so effective," ter Meulen said. \\\\\\\
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Yellow Fever Current Events and Yellow Fever News RSSOHSU scientists partner with others to form center aimed at combating infectious diseases
Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Washington, along with a number of partner institutions across the Northwest, have received federal funding to form a regional research center aimed at combating emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases that pose a serious threat to human health.
How mosquitoes could teach us a trick in the fight against malaria
The means by which most deadly malaria parasites are detected and killed by the mosquitoes that carry them is revealed for the first time in research published today (5 March) in Science Express. The discovery could help researchers find a way to block transmission of the disease from mosquitoes to humans.
New test may help to ensure that dengue vaccines do no harm
As vaccines against a virus that infects 100 million people annually reach late-stage clinical trials this year, researchers have developed a test to better predict whether a given vaccine candidate should protect patients from the infection, or in some cases, make it more dangerous, according to an article just published in the journal Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.
Study of ancient and modern plagues finds common features
In 430 B.C., a new and deadly disease-its cause remains a mystery-swept into Athens. The walled Greek city-state was teeming with citizens, soldiers and refugees of the war then raging between Athens and Sparta.
Researchers discover strategy for predicting the immunity of vaccines
In the first study of its kind, researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University, have developed a multidisciplinary approach involving immunology, genomics and bioinformatics to predict the immunity of a vaccine without exposing individuals to infection.
Smaller mosquitoes are more likey to be infected with viruses causing human diseases
An entomologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, a division of the new UI Institute for Natural Resource Sustainability, says smaller mosquitoes are more likely to be infected with viruses that cause diseases in humans.
'Deadly dozen' reports diseases worsened by climate change
Health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society today released a report that lists 12 pathogens that could spread into new regions as a result of climate change, with potential impacts to both human and wildlife health and global economies.
New West Nile and Japanese encephalitis vaccines produced
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have developed new vaccines to protect against West Nile and Japanese encephalitis viruses. The investigators created the vaccines using an innovative technique that they believe could also enable the development of new vaccines against other diseases, such as yellow fever and dengue fever, which are caused by similar viruses.
Ayurvedic nightshade deadly for dengue mosquito
Mosquitoes responsible for spreading disease are increasingly becoming resistant to synthetic insecticides. Now research published in the online open access journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine suggests that the berries of a weed common to India, Solanum villosum (S villosum), have potential for keeping mosquitoes at bay.
Findings reveal how dengue virus matures, becomes infectious
Biologists at Purdue University have determined why dengue virus particles undergo structural changes as they mature in host cells and how the changes are critical for enabling the virus to infect new host cells.
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