Park Seung Bum, Zimmer-Harwood Paul, Liang T Jake
Liver Diseases Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Nat Rev Immunol. 2025 Sep 12. doi: 10.1038/s41577-025-01215-9.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a serious global health burden that affects nearly 50 million people worldwide. Despite the availability of highly effective direct-acting antiviral drugs, the lack of an effective HCV vaccine hinders control and elimination worldwide, wherein new infections and overall prevalence remain high. HCV vaccine development faces challenges including high genetic diversity of the virus, unclear correlates of protective immunity, and lack of robust in vivo models for vaccine testing. Despite these obstacles, the landscape of HCV vaccine development is rapidly evolving. Innovative strategies, including subunit, virus-like particle, viral vector, DNA and RNA vaccines, show promising results, and controlled human infection models offer a unique, albeit ethically complex, opportunity to accelerate vaccine development. Collaborative efforts among academia, industry, governmental agencies and regulatory bodies are crucial for optimizing vaccine strategies, overcoming current challenges and effecting advances towards global HCV elimination through vaccination.
丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）仍然是一个严重的全球健康负担，全球近5000万人受其影响。尽管有高效的直接作用抗病毒药物，但缺乏有效的HCV疫苗阻碍了全球范围内的控制和消除工作，新感染病例和总体患病率仍然很高。HCV疫苗的研发面临诸多挑战，包括病毒的高遗传多样性、保护性免疫的相关因素不明确，以及缺乏用于疫苗测试的强大体内模型。尽管存在这些障碍，但HCV疫苗的研发格局正在迅速演变。创新策略，包括亚单位疫苗、病毒样颗粒疫苗、病毒载体疫苗、DNA疫苗和RNA疫苗，都显示出了有前景的结果，而可控人类感染模型提供了一个独特的、尽管在伦理上较为复杂的加速疫苗研发的机会。学术界、产业界、政府机构和监管机构之间的合作努力对于优化疫苗策略、克服当前挑战以及通过接种疫苗推动全球消除HCV至关重要。
