Researchers develop vaccine to fight Zika virus stat : ConsumerAffairs

Read Full Bio→Researchers are still hard at work trying to come up with a solution to the Zika virus. Fighting Zika virusZika virus became a hot-button issue early in 2016 when it began to spread in Latin America. The researchers say that they have developed a vaccine against the virus that has been shown to be both highly effective and safe in animal models. The researchers say that the VLP vaccine "offers an effective and safe strategy to create a prophylactic vaccine that protect against Zika infection as well as its serious effects." They hope that their partnership with TechnoVax will help jumpstart new vaccine projects that target additional virus pathogens. To make matters worse, researchers later found that a second species of mosquito was capable of spreading the virus, raising concerns about increased transmission rates.




The Zika virus stands to cost the United States billions of dollars, even if few people are infected. In addition, poverty in the region contributes, through factors like poor housing and environmental degradation that can boost to mosquito numbers and Infection rates. Infection rates in Puerto Rico for the similar chikungunya virus also exceed 10 percent. Data like these, along with many of the remaining questions about Zika's health effects, reinforce the notion that "we don't know more than we do know," Hotez said. This surprised many researchers, Hotez said.


(AP) - An Omaha woman infected with the Zika virus while pregnant has delivered a healthy baby girl. Our partners at The Omaha World-Herald report that Evelyn Suastegui gave birth to the girl on Tuesday. Suastegui was the first pregnant woman in Nebraska to have a confirmed case of the mosquito-borne virus. Her Zika infection and pregnancy were diagnosed after she returned to Nebraska. OMAHA, Neb.


collected by :Sandra Alex
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