Double vaccine against rabies and yellow fever in development

Various drawbacks hinder the efficient distribution of current vaccines against rabies and yellow fever. The researchers are working on a new vaccine with an innovative technology called PLLAV, developed at KU Leuven.

“The new vaccine can be included in routine childhood vaccinations and administered without a needle,” explained professor Johan Neyts, who co-ordinates the RABYD-VAX consortium.

Rabies, usually transmitted through dog bites, claims about 59,000 lives each year worldwide. “Most patients, of whom about half are children, live in rural areas in Africa and Asia,” said Neyts. “Many people are not protected because the vaccines are expensive and need to be transported and stored at cool temperatures.”

The mosquito-borne virus yellow fever causes about 30,000 deaths per year. According to Neyts, current production techniques do not yield enough doses of the vaccine. “There is a real danger that major outbreaks of yellow fever will become uncontrollable,” he said, pointing to epidemics last year in the Congo and Angola. “The World Health Organisation had to use its entire emergency stock to vaccinate the six million people in the Angolan capital Luanda alone.”

The RABYD-VAX consortium, which also includes Belgium’s Scientific Institute for Public Health, has received a €4.1 million grant from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme for the development of the vaccine.

Photo: A young woman is vaccinated against yellow fever at a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo
© WHO/E. Soteras Jalil