Viral Emerging Diseases: Challenges in Developing Vaccination Strategies

Abstract

In the last decades, a number of infectious viruses have emerged from wildlife or reemerged, generating serious threats to the global health and to the economy worldwide. Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers, Lassa fever, Dengue fever, Yellow fever, West Nile fever, Zika, and Chikungunya vector-borne diseases, Swine flu, Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and the recent Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are examples of zoonoses that have spread throughout the globe with such a significant impact on public health that the scientific community has been called for a rapid intervention in preventing and treating emerging infections. Vaccination is probably the most effective tool in helping the immune system to activate protective responses against pathogens, reducing morbidity and mortality, as proven by historical records. Under health emergency conditions, new and alternative approaches in vaccine design and development are imperative for a rapid and massive vaccination coverage, to manage a disease outbreak and curtail the epidemic spread. This review gives an update on the current vaccination strategies for some of the emerging/re-emerging viruses, and discusses challenges and hurdles to overcome for developing efficacious vaccines against future pathogens.

Sublingual Bacterial Vaccination Reduces Recurrent Infections in Patients With Autoimmune Diseases Under Immunosuppressant Treatment

“…This is even more necessary for recurrent or chronic infections in the setting of immunocompromised patients. In this context, recently described trained immunitybased vaccines (TIbV) have been postulated as a promising alternative to reduce recurrent infections (10)(11)(12). TIbVs are aimed to elicit not only specific responses to vaccine-related antigens, but to stimulate a broad immune response against unrelated pathogens (10).…”

Congenital Deafness and Recent Advances Towards Restoring Hearing Loss

“…Another explanation could be the presence of different strains of ZIKV with different levels of aggressiveness ( Russo, Jungmann, & Beltrao-Braga, 2017 ). Several vaccines and antiviral peptide therapies have been developed, and some vaccine candidates are currently in phase I of clinical trials to protect the population against the Zika virus ( Camargos et al, 2019 ; De Lorenzo et al, 2020 ; Trovato, Sartorius, D’Apice, Manco, & De Berardinis, 2020 ).…”

Antiviral Cyanometabolites—A Review

“…The recent COVID-19 pandemic affected all economic sectors, the health system, education, social mobility, sport, and many other areas of human activities [ 13 ]. Unfortunately, effective protection by vaccinations is available only for selected viral species [ 14 , 15 ]. Further, the development of effective drugs is a long and tedious process that frequently ends up being a failure.…”