A researcher from Plymouth University’s School of Biomedical Sciences recently published a piece in Expert Review of Vaccines stating that self-disseminating vaccines are an important way the medical community can deal with infectious diseases.
The goal of a self-disseminating vaccine is to stop an infectious diseases at its source – animals – before the illness reaches humans.
This is the first time a review like this has been published about
emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). It is relevant in light of West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, which exposed the weaknesses in local health services as well as science in handling the pandemic. The outbreak also showed the dangers of EIDs.
The review was published by Michael Jarvis, a molecular virologist and expert in EIDs. The Plymouth University professor has knowledge about the best ways to use self-disseminating vaccines to handle EIDs.
“In this review we have explored self-disseminating vaccines as an innovative means to prevent EID transmission from animals to humans,” Jarvis said. “From HIV to Ebola and SARS, highly virulent pathogens are continually emerging from animals into the human population. Our review has been based on discussion with scientists from across the conventional and disseminating vaccine fields, and we have used the experience gained through my own and that of my co-author’s experimental work.
“We suggest that state-of-the-art disseminating vaccines may have a role to play as a new and potentially powerful strategy to circumvent EIDs at the animal source before their establishment as the next human pandemic.”
