Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA.
Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA.
Viruses. 2019 Sep 5;11(9):823. doi: 10.3390/v11090823.
Although West Nile virus (WNV) has been a prominent mosquito-transmitted infection in North America for twenty years, no human vaccine has been licensed. With a cumulative number of 24,714 neurological disease cases and 2314 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, plus a large outbreak in Europe in 2018 involving over 2000 human cases in 15 countries, a vaccine is essential to prevent continued morbidity, mortality, and economic burden. Currently, four veterinary vaccines are licensed, and six vaccines have progressed into clinical trials in humans. All four veterinary vaccines require multiple primary doses and annual boosters, but for a human vaccine to be protective and cost effective in the most vulnerable older age population, it is ideal that the vaccine be strongly immunogenic with only a single dose and without subsequent annual boosters. Of six human vaccine candidates, the two live, attenuated vaccines were the only ones that elicited strong immunity after a single dose. As none of these candidates have yet progressed beyond phase II clinical trials, development of new candidate vaccines and improvement of vaccination strategies remains an important area of research.
尽管西尼罗河病毒 (WNV) 在北美已经存在了二十年，是一种主要的蚊媒传染病，但目前仍没有获得许可的人类疫苗。自 1999 年以来，美国已有 24714 例神经疾病病例和 2314 例死亡病例，加上 2018 年在欧洲爆发的大规模疫情，涉及 15 个国家的 2000 多例人类病例，因此疫苗对于预防持续的发病率、死亡率和经济负担至关重要。目前，有四种兽医疫苗获得许可，六种疫苗已在人类临床试验中取得进展。所有四种兽医疫苗都需要多次基础剂量和每年加强针，但对于一种在最脆弱的老年人群中具有保护作用且具有成本效益的人类疫苗而言，理想情况下，该疫苗只需单剂量就能产生强烈的免疫反应，并且不需要后续每年加强针。在六种人类疫苗候选物中，只有两种活减毒疫苗在单次接种后能引发强烈的免疫反应。由于这些候选物都尚未进入 II 期临床试验，因此开发新的候选疫苗和改进疫苗接种策略仍然是一个重要的研究领域。
