Hantavirus Vaccine in Development After Cruise Ship Outbreak Raises Alarm
The good news is that there is a new hantavirus vaccine in development. The bad news is that it is not going to be available anytime in the near future. Here is what you need to know about the vaccine, who is developing it, and when you can expect to see it available for widespread use.
Moderna Working to Develop Hantavirus Vaccine Amid Outbreak
Long before the latest hantavirus outbreak, Moderna and Korea University had been working to develop a vaccine for the virus. While the early results are promising, health experts caution that the vaccine is not likely to be available soon.
American pharmaceutical company Moderna recently confirmed that it is working on developing the hantavirus vaccine in partnership with the Vaccine Innovation Center of Korea University College of Medicine (VIC-K). The news of a vaccine in the works comes as the world watches the repercussions of a hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship.
At least three passengers aboard the MV Hondius have died as a result of the virus. The cruise set sail from Argentina and had been in the water for days before crew members suspected that something was amiss. The passengers and crew disembarked in the Canary Islands on May 10 and have been in quarantine in various locations around the world since that time.
Moderna is the same drug manufacturer that launched the modern messenger RNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is only recently that hantavirus has been in the news, Moderna began the project with VIC-K back in 2023.
The hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship has been dominating the international headlines over the last few weeks. However, the virus itself is not a novel event. Hantavirus has been a well-recognized pathogen in the medical community for decades. The virus is primarily transmitted through human exposure to droppings, saliva, or urine of infected rodents. The most common complications of hantavirus patients are hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Hantaviruses are blamed for approximately 50,000 severe and often deadly infections across the globe every year. The New World hantavirus strains have a fatality rate of up to 40%. The Andean hantavirus (ANDV) is one specific strain of the New World hantaviruses. This is the strain that the World Health Organization (WHO) identified on the cruise ship.
What has been most concerning to global health officials is that the ANDV is the only type of hantavirus that has triggered human-to-human transmission. There is no vaccine available to prevent ANDV infections. Instead, medical care professionals can only manage the symptoms and treat the life-threatening impacts.
Although there is no widely available proven vaccine for hantavirus, South Korea has previously used an inactivated vaccine called Hantavax. However, this previous-generation vaccine is not considered to be widely effective. In addition, the production methodology derived from an animal brain is now antiquated.
The fact that South Korea is the only country to have some version of this vaccine is why Moderna chose VIC-K to partner with in an attempt to engineer a modern version. According to the details of the collaboration, the Koreans supply the hantavirus antigenic sequence information while Moderna provides the necessary mRNA material.
The VIC-K Department of Microbiology confirmed last year that the experimental doses worked in preventing hantavirus infection in mice. However, it could still take years for the vaccine to pass the tests needed to license it for humans. As of today, the vaccine candidate is in the preclinical phases, signaling that it has not started the human trial phase of the review process.
Complicating the process of developing a vaccine is that hantaviruses are known for their significant regional variations. This means that the hantavirus strain that impacts North America is not always identical to what people in Asia may see. The regional differences make it more difficult to design one vaccine with the ability to offer protection against multiple strains. The collaboration between Moderna and VIC-K aims to develop a vaccine that protects against more variants than what the Koreans had previously developed.
About mRNA Vaccines
The COVID-19 pandemic thrust mRNA vaccines into the spotlight. This type of vaccine is able to quickly adapt to new variants, meaning that it can evolve to meet the current strain. mRNA vaccines also do not need a live pathogen culture, making them the easiest to scale up in a swift amount of time.
Shares of Moderna skyrocketed by nearly 20% after the release of the preliminary data of the hantavirus vaccine paired with the ongoing outbreak on the Hondius. However, Wall Street believes that the surge in stock is more likely due to the confirmation of the mRNA technology rather than the expectation that the vaccine will be available soon. This is particularly true when much of the U.S. population has become increasingly vocal about being against mass vaccination initiatives.
The good news is that the WHO recently ruled out the recent hantavirus outbreak as being a precursor to a new epidemic. The WHO continues to assert that human-to-human hantavirus transmission only happens with close contacts.
Moderna is also currently working to develop mRNA vaccines against noroviruses and avian influenza, speaking to the confidence that this type of immunization is the future of preventative medicine. In addition, there are other agencies currently working to develop a modern hantavirus vaccine, including the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
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