Fresh Promising Vaccines Developed Against Zika Virus

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In February, the World Health Organization declared the Zika epidemic a global public health emergency. Since then, drugmakers have been working to create vaccines that could protect against it.

Two have proven extremely effective in mouse experiments.

One of the drugs is a so-called DNA vaccine, engineered from a single Zika viral protein. The other is a purified inactivated, or killed, virus — the same technology used to make the original polio vaccine.

Dan Barouch, a professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard University and an infectious diseases specialist, says both vaccines stimulate the production of immune system antibodies that protect mice from infection by the Zika virus.

"And the protection was striking. The protection was complete,” he said. “All of the mice that received the vaccine showed no virus in the bloodstream after challenge, whereas all the mice that did not receive the vaccines became infected and had high levels of virus in the bloodstream. One of the important points is that the protection could be achieved by a single immunization."