Butantan announces promising results for the chikungunya vaccine | National Magazine

You we They were chosen to start the research because cases of chikungunya are rare there. This means that the population does not have antibodies to the virus and the results are more accurate.

The new vaccine uses weakened viruses. Once applied, it stimulates the body to produce antibodies, but without causing disease.

In a phase 3 report, provided by the French-Austrian laboratory Valneva, the vaccine produced antibodies in 96.3% of the volunteers. Protection is maintained six months after application.

In the study conducted in we4,000 volunteers over the age of 18. In Brazil, research has already begun in São José do Rio Preto, in the interior of São Paulo. Tests will also be held in 6 other cities.

Here, the volunteers will be adolescents, ages 12 to 17, to measure antibody production in the younger population.

a Director Putantan InstituteDimas CovasHe believes the results in Brazil could be better.

“Chikungunya here is an endemic situation. Every year we have cases of chikungunya, so this was also predicted in the clinical study by Butantan,” he explains.

Infectologists consider chikungunya to be a neglected disease. The virus has been known since the 1950s, but has not received much attention from laboratories. To this day, there is no cure.

Therefore, the news of the good results of the search for a vaccine was celebrated, especially in Brazil.

In 2021, there were 137,000 cases of chikungunya in the Americas, 132,000 of them in Brazil, which equates to just over 96% of the total.

a Dr. Marco Safadi, Professor of Infectious Diseases at Santa Casa de São Paulo, explains that the disease – transmitted by the bite of Aedes aegypti – causes high fever, headache, skin spots and joint pain. It can kill.

About 30% to 50% of those infected can persist with manifestations of the disease for weeks to months. Joint pain, often leading to disability.”

The partnership between Butantan and the Valneva Laboratory provides technology transfer for vaccine production in Brazil.

“Butantan has a plant ready for this situation and this transfer has already begun. We expect to provide this data by the end of this year and then we will wait for the next regulatory steps. We hope to have this vaccine available by 2023”, highlights Dimas Covas.