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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/uotm-pnv080912.php
Public release date: 9-Aug-2012
Contact: Jim Kelly
jpkelly@utmb.edu
409-772-8791
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Potential Nipah vaccine passes primate test
Researchers have successfully tested a vaccine for the deadly Nipah virus in monkeys, raising hopes that it could provide similar protection for humans.
With greater than a 75 percent fatality rate and the ability to be transmitted directly from person to person, Nipah has long been a significant concern for infectious-disease experts. The virus, which is carried naturally by fruit bats, was first discovered in Malaysia in 1998. Outbreaks have occurred in nearly every year since, in Singapore, Bangladesh and India.
"This vaccine is based on a protein from Hendra virus, which is a very close relative of Nipah ? Hendra's found in Australia and is also spread by bats, which give it to horses, which give it to people," said University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston professor Thomas Geisbert, senior author of a paper on the study now online in Science Translational Medicine. "We've got a lot of confidence that the vaccine will work in people, because the animal model we used in this experiment, the African green monkey, faithfully reproduces all aspects of human Nipah and Hendra disease..."
Public release date: 9-Aug-2012
Contact: Jim Kelly
jpkelly@utmb.edu
409-772-8791
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Potential Nipah vaccine passes primate test
Researchers have successfully tested a vaccine for the deadly Nipah virus in monkeys, raising hopes that it could provide similar protection for humans.
With greater than a 75 percent fatality rate and the ability to be transmitted directly from person to person, Nipah has long been a significant concern for infectious-disease experts. The virus, which is carried naturally by fruit bats, was first discovered in Malaysia in 1998. Outbreaks have occurred in nearly every year since, in Singapore, Bangladesh and India.
"This vaccine is based on a protein from Hendra virus, which is a very close relative of Nipah ? Hendra's found in Australia and is also spread by bats, which give it to horses, which give it to people," said University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston professor Thomas Geisbert, senior author of a paper on the study now online in Science Translational Medicine. "We've got a lot of confidence that the vaccine will work in people, because the animal model we used in this experiment, the African green monkey, faithfully reproduces all aspects of human Nipah and Hendra disease..."
