In the era of rapid mRNA-based vaccines: Why is there no effective hepatitis C virus vaccine yet?

World J Hepatol

Laboratorio de Virología Molecular, Centro de Investigaciones Nucleares, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo 11400, Uruguay.

Published: October 2021

AI Article Synopsis

  • Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects about 71 million people and can lead to serious liver problems, making it a top reason for liver transplants.
  • New treatments are hopeful, but it's still hard for some people to get them, especially those who inject drugs and might get reinfected.
  • There is a push to create a vaccine for HCV, similar to successful COVID-19 vaccines, with new ideas focusing on advanced vaccine methods to help stop infections and their effects.

Article Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is responsible for no less than 71 million people chronically infected and is one of the most frequent indications for liver transplantation worldwide. Despite direct-acting antiviral therapies fuel optimism in controlling HCV infections, there are several obstacles regarding treatment accessibility and reinfection continues to remain a possibility. Indeed, the majority of new HCV infections in developed countries occur in people who inject drugs and are more plausible to get reinfected. To achieve global epidemic control of this virus the development of an effective prophylactic or therapeutic vaccine becomes a must. The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic led to auspicious vaccine development against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, which has renewed interest on fighting HCV epidemic with vaccination. The aim of this review is to highlight the current situation of HCV vaccine candidates designed to prevent and/or to reduce HCV infectious cases and their complications. We will emphasize on some of the crossroads encountered during vaccine development against this insidious virus, together with some key aspects of HCV immunology which have, so far, hampered the progress in this area. The main focus will be on nucleic acid-based as well as recombinant viral vector-based vaccine candidates as the most novel vaccine approaches, some of which have been recently and successfully employed for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Finally, some ideas will be presented on which methods to explore for the design of live-attenuated vaccines against HCV.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8568586PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.4254/wjh.v13.i10.1234DOI Listing

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