Chikungunya virus and prospects for a vaccine

Abstract

In 2004, chikungunya virus (CHIKV) re-emerged from East Africa to cause devastating epidemics of debilitating and often chronic arthralgia that have affected millions of people in the Indian Ocean Basin and Asia. More limited epidemics initiated by travelers subsequently occurred in Italy and France, as well as human cases exported to most regions of the world, including the Americas where CHIKV could become endemic. Because CHIKV circulates during epidemics in an urban mosquito–human cycle, control of transmission relies on mosquito abatement, which is rarely effective. Furthermore, there is no antiviral treatment for CHIKV infection and no licensed vaccine to prevent disease. Here, we discuss the challenges to the development of a safe, effective and affordable chikungunya vaccine and recent progress toward this goal.

Keywords::

• alphavirus
• antibody
• chikungunya
• emergence
• evolution
• mosquito
• vaccine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Research by the authors on CHIKV is supported by NIH grants AI069145, AI082202, AI093491 and by a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) through the Western Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research, NIH grant U54 AIO57156. SC Weaver is an inventor on a UTMB patent application describing IRES-attenuated alphavirus vaccines. Inviragen has obtained license to the patent for commercial development of a CHIK vaccine. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.