Approval of the first-ever chikungunya vaccine is almost complete

It's anticipated that the first vaccination against the virus that is carried by mosquitoes, chikungunya, will hit stores next month. 

Scott Weaver, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch, whose own lab began working on a chikungunya vaccine nearly two decades ago, calls the impending FDA approval of the vaccine "great news," given that the crippling disease is currently present in more than half of the world's countries and poses a threat to spread.

The French business Valneva manufactures the vaccine, which is first expected to be advised mostly to tourists from the United States. However, a lot of people anticipate that FDA approval will also clear the way for the vaccine to be made available in the most impacted nations.

Chikungunya, which was first reported in 1952 in what is now Tanzania, is named after an East African illness that "bends up the joints" in Kimakonde. Up to 40% of individuals infected by the chikungunya virus, which is rarely lethal, experience chronic, crippling joint pain; these individuals are primarily residents of warm areas with high densities of the two mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and A. albopictus. Travelers who have returned from afflicted nations have been the source of almost all cases in the United States.

The vaccine is expected to be approved without the customary efficacy data from human trials because it uses a lab-weakened strain of the virus that does not cause illness. 

On the other hand, Valneva organized experiments that demonstrated that in test tube studies, 99% of individuals who had a single injection produced long-lasting antibodies capable of neutralizing the virus.