Abstract
Vaccinations are a crucial intervention in combating infectious diseases. The three neurotropic Alphaviruses, Eastern (EEEV), Venezuelan (VEEV), and Western (WEEV) equine encephalitis viruses, are pathogens of interest for animal health, public health, and biological defense. In both equines and humans, these viruses can cause febrile illness that may progress to encephalitis. Currently, there are no licensed treatments or vaccines available for these viruses in humans. Experimental vaccines have shown variable efficacy and may cause severe adverse effects. Here, we outline recent strategies used to generate vaccines against EEEV, VEEV, and WEEV with an emphasis on virus-vectored and plasmid DNA delivery. Despite candidate vaccines protecting against one of the three viruses, few studies have demonstrated an effective trivalent vaccine. We evaluated the potential of published vaccines to generate cross-reactive protective responses by comparing DNA vaccine sequences to a set of EEEV, VEEV, and WEEV genomes and determining the vaccine coverages of potential epitopes. Finally, we discuss future directions in the development of vaccines to combat EEEV, VEEV, and WEEV.
Highlights
Vaccinations provide an effective means of protection from infectious diseases for humans and animals
The coronavirus vaccine development is another example, where an investment in a forward-looking vaccine design could help to prevent new outbreaks, rather than responding only when the latest viral outbreak emerges as a threat to global health, which delays the development of an effective vaccination countermeasure [3,4,5,6,7]
We evaluated coverage of published vaccine sequences against a set of reference genomes of EEEV, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), and WEEV (Figure 3)
Summary
Vaccinations provide an effective means of protection from infectious diseases for humans and animals. Alphaviruses, Eastern (EEEV), Venezuelan (VEEV), and Western (WEEV) equine encephalitis viruses circulate between rodents or birds and mosquito vectors and can spill over into equine and human populations [10]. In humans, these arboviruses cause disease of variable severity, ranging from mild febrile illness to life-threatening encephalitis [11]. Large individual outbreaks in humans with VEEV have been reported, such as in 1995 in Columbia, which resulted in ~75,000 infections, 3000 cases of neurological sequelae, and 300 deaths. We review recent progress made towards safe and immunogenic vaccines
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