Source: BBC Health
Early clinical trials of a manufactured hepatitis C vaccine has shown what researchers at Oxford Univesity are calling “promising” results. The study involved only 41 patients and was complicated by the fact that the virus alters its appearance.
Designing a vaccine has been difficult as the virus changes its appearance, making it hard to find something to target. Hepatitis, a disease affecting the liver, is caused by five main viruses – A, B and C, and, more rarely D and E. Hepatitis B is the most common, and can be passed from mother to baby at birth or in early childhood as well as through contaminated injections, injected drug use, unprotected sex and other means. Hepatitis C is also spread through using unsterile needles and less commonly through unsafe sex, and sharing razors or toothbrushes, for example. The E virus, caught from infected water or food, is a common cause of outbreaks of the disease in developing countries, said the World Health Organization. Many of those carrying hepatitis are not aware they have it and can unknowingly transmit it to others.
The first worldwide estimates in drug users show 10 million people have hepatitis C while another 1.3 million have hepatitis B. Only a small number of those who could benefit from antiviral drugs recive them. Only 1 in 5 infants around the world are vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth, they say. About 67% of injecting drug users in the world have been exposed to hepatitis C, while around 10% have come into contact with hepatitis B. According to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are more than 700,000 cases of viral hepatitis per year in the United States -more than half of which are asymptomatic. The virus is found worldwide with the highest levels in under-developed countries.
The researchers say a vaccine “would be a major step forward”. So just how does one make an antiviral vaccine? The researchers modified common cold viruses with genetic material from the hepatitis C virus. The idea is to develop an immune system response against the hepatitis C virus. Of the 41 healthy patients given the vaccine, a “very strong” immune response was demonstrated. This response lasted for at least a year and had no major side-effects. The research was led by Prof Louisa Degenhardt of the Centre for Population Health, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and Paul Nelson from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.
Posted by: David M. Schwadron, Esquire