A team of experts from the
University of Manchester have been commissioned to develop a new vaccine
against the Zika virus as part of an initiative to counter the disease which
has spread rapidly across the Americas in the last few months, reports ITRealms.
The team, ITRealms gathered would
create and test a vaccine based on a safe derivative of a pre-existing smallpox
vaccine – the only disease to have been successfully globally eradicated.
Dr. Tom Blanchard, Honorary Senior
Lecturer at The University of Manchester and Fellow of the Liverpool School of
Tropical Medicine and Consultant in Infectious Diseases at North Manchester
General Hospital and the Royal Liverpool Hospital will lead the project.
Professor Pam Vallely and Dr Eddie McKenzie are University of Manchester
experts involved in the project and the work will be done in collaboration with
Professors Miles Carrol and Roger Hewson from Public Health England.
“As we have seen in the case of
Ebola there is now a real need to react quickly to fast spreading tropical
diseases. Zika can cause serious illness, but it often has no visible
symptoms, so a vaccine for those at risk is one of the most effective ways we
have of combating it,” Dr. Blanchard said.
ITRealms recollects, Zika virus was
first identified in Uganda in 1947 and the disease is mainly spread by
mosquitoes, though there have been reports of human to human transmission.
It is particularly serious for pregnant women, as it's been linked to
birth defects – in particular, microcephaly, a condition where a baby’s brain
doesn’t grow properly and it is born with an abnormally small head and serious
development problems.
A recent and particularly severe
outbreak which began in South America and has since spread north to United
States Territories prompted the Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust
and the Newton Fund to launch a £4m rapid response funding initiative at the
beginning of February.
Media Relations Manager at the University, Mr. James Brown, informed ITRealms that the results of this call for proposals were announced Monday and Dr Blanchard and his team were awarded £177,713
to build and test a vaccine as part of this.
It is expected that the results will
be delivered within 18 months and although the first target will be the Zika
virus, the nature of the vaccine candidate may enable it to combat many
infectious diseases simultaneously.
Dr Blanchard added: “We know that
there’s an urgent need for this vaccine but we’ll be working carefully to
deliver a product which is safe and effective and which can be quickly deployed
to those who need it.
“If we can also use this vaccine on
multiple targets then this will represent an exciting step forward in dealing
with these kinds of outbreaks.”
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1 comment:
Oh that is very sad news to have but good thing is taht they are making efforts to remove that virus. personal statement examples for nursing
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