Currently, no vaccine has been approved against NiV.
According to an international team of researchers, a vaccine like Covishield has been found to be successful in monkey trials against Nipah virus. Nipah virus (NIV) is a highly pathogenic and re-emerging virus that causes sporadic but severe infections in humans.
Last week, it claimed the life of a 12-year-old boy in Kerala amid the surge of COVID-19. While all high-risk contacts of the deceased have tested negative, the adjoining states have been put on high alert for the disease. In 2018, the virus outbreak in the state killed 17 out of 18 people who were confirmed with the virus.
Currently, no vaccine has been approved against NiV. Researchers from the University of Oxford and the US National Institutes of Health examined the efficacy of ChAdOx1 NiV in eight African green monkeys. They published the results on the pre-print server BioRxiv, which means it has yet to be reviewed.
ChAdOx1 NiV, based on the same vector as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, has been approved for emergency use in more than 60 countries around the world and administered to 100 million people.
Whereas one group of four monkeys were given either two shots or one shot of ChadOx1NiV, the other group was injected with a dummy protein (ChAdOx1 GFP), again vectored by ChAdOx1.
All eight were then or artificially infected with the real Nipah virus, some given through the nose and others through the throat.
A strong humoral and cellular response was detected from day 14 onwards after initial vaccination.
When artificially infected with the original Nipah virus, control animals displayed a variety of symptoms and had to be euthanized between five and seven days after vaccination.
“In contrast, the vaccinated animals showed no signs of disease and we were unable to detect infectious virus in all except a swab and all tissues,” the researchers said.
Gilbert, of the Jenner Institute Nuffield Department, said: “Limiting antibodies against the fusion protein or nucleoprotein IgG can be detected as early as 42 days after infection with eel NiV, suggesting that vaccination has prevented widespread virus replication. induced a very strong protective immune response to stop.” Medicine at Oxford.
Researchers previously showed that a single dose of ChAdOx1 NiV confers complete protection in hamsters. The team also found very limited evidence of virus replication in vaccinated animals, but a swab was negative for infectious virus and no virus was found in tissues obtained from vaccinated animals.
These data suggest that the vaccine may confer full protective immunity in monkeys, the researchers explained.
“In both the hamster and monkey NiV models, vaccination with ChAdOx1 NiV resulted in high antibody titers with complete protection against lethal NiV disease,” said Vincent J. Munster, Laboratory of Virology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH. said.
The team noted that the safety profiles obtained in ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 clinical studies combined with efficacy studies in animal models may provide sufficient information for approval of ChAdOx1 niV.
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