A recent report published on Tuesday disclosed promising results from a large-scale trial of the chikungunya vaccine candidate developed by Valneva, a French-Austrian pharmaceutical company. Chikungunya is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes and periodically causes outbreaks worldwide.
Although the trial took place in the United States, where the disease is rare, experts cautioned that further research is needed despite the positive outcomes in the fight against chikungunya.
The virus typically leads to fever and sometimes debilitating joint pain, but it rarely results in death, and no vaccines or treatments are currently available.
Valneva has submitted applications for regulatory clearance in the US and Canada, claiming that their vaccine candidate, called VLA1553, is the first to be evaluated by health authorities.
In the randomized, placebo-controlled Phase III trial, researchers aimed to determine the frequency of immune response elicited by the live-attenuated vaccine, which utilizes a weakened form of the virus.
According to a study published in The Lancet, out of a subset of 266 vaccinated patients, 263 individuals, or 99 percent, developed antibodies capable of neutralizing the chikungunya virus.
The single-shot vaccine was deemed “generally safe” with adverse effects comparable to previous vaccines in a larger trial involving 4,100 healthy individuals.
Only two participants experienced major adverse reactions related to the vaccination, and both fully recovered.
Martina Schneider, the study’s lead author and clinical strategy manager for Valneva, described the findings as “promising” and highlighted the potential for the vaccine to be available to people in endemic regions or travelers visiting areas at risk of chikungunya outbreaks.
Public health experts are concerned about the possibility of a chikungunya pandemic in the future due to climate change, which could expand the range of mosquitoes that transmit the virus to new areas.
Kathryn Stephenson, an infectious disease expert at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in the US, viewed the new study as “good news for chikungunya virus pandemic preparedness.” However, she noted that the vaccine might be less effective in areas with pre-existing immunity to chikungunya, as is the case with live-attenuated vaccines.
Since its discovery in 1952 in Tanzania, chikungunya has been reported in more than 110 countries, according to the World Health Organization.
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