Vaccines against Emerging and Neglected Infectious Diseases: An Overview

Abstract

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are a group of diseases that are highly prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions, and closely associated with poverty and marginalized populations. Infectious diseases affect over 1.6 billion people annually, and vaccines are the best prophylactic tool against them. Along with NTDs, emerging and reemerging infectious diseases also threaten global public health, as they can unpredictably result in pandemics. The recent advances in vaccinology allowed the development and licensing of new vaccine platforms that can target and prevent these diseases. In this work, we discuss the advances in vaccinology and some of the difficulties found in the vaccine development pipeline for selected NTDs and emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, including HIV, Dengue, Ebola, Chagas disease, malaria, leishmaniasis, zika, and chikungunya.

Keywords: emerging infectious diseases; neglected diseases; vaccines.

Figure 1

Vaccine generations and different development strategies used nowadays. VLP (Virus-Like Particle); LNP (Nanoparticle).

Figure 2

Line of development time and release of a vaccine: Discovery and description of the etiological agent; Development of the vaccine prototype; Preclinical tests in animal models; Clinical trials that are subdivided into phase I, phase II, and phase III; Approval, vaccination release, and phase IV clinical test; Mass vaccination program.

Figure 3

Public policies need to ensure vaccination to populations in high-risk areas where nature and social problems, such as war, violence, and poverty, make access difficult by healthcare. They also need to address special groups, including women, the poor, indigenous communities, and patients with comorbidities. However, this cannot be accomplished only by offering vaccines to the population; individuals and communities also need to understand the benefits of vaccination, which will only be accomplished by education.