Lyme disease vaccine: Major test underway. All you need to know

Lyme disease has long plagued the US and Europe, and the possibility of getting the first vaccine seems to be on. Thousands of volunteers are being administered a jab to hopefully fight this tick-borne disease.

Lyme disease has been common in areas where ticks thrive, especially when the weather gets warm. Even though there is a successful vaccination for dogs against this disease, for humans, the last vaccine was pulled off the shelves in 2002 due to low demand. It resulted in bug sprays and tick checks being the only methods to fight the ailment.
Vaccine for Lyme Disease
Pfizer and Valneva of France are in the process of zeroing in on a new vaccine, which has averted the earlier problems associated with the vaccine. This new vaccine can be administered to adults and children over the age of four and prevents common Lyme strains in both Europe and the USA.

Annaliesa Anderson, Chief of Vaccines-Pfizer, is of the opinion that earlier people were not so concerned and didn’t understand the dangers of the disease and how it could spread.

Robert Terwilliger, who is a hunter and loves to hike around, was one of the early birds and beat the others at the cue. He rues the fact that the next tick bite he gets might make him sick, as many of his friends have fallen ill. He is so worried about this disease when he is on his watch on a tree during his hunting spree and something crawls on his skin. He is 60 now and says that he needs to be very cautious about ticks and constantly worry about falling sick.

A Lyme disease attack is very erratic and there is no fixed pattern. According to Pfizer reports, Europe has 130,000 cases per year, while the United States has 476,000 cases. After being bitten by a Lyme-carrying tick, first, a red bull-eye rash appears, followed later by fatigue, fever, and joint pain.

People should ideally try a quick antibiotic treatment, but with this disease it is hard to tell. Some have lingering pain even after being cured, and this is a major problem. People also face difficulties in recalling a tick bite as some ticks are so small and hardly noticeable. At the same time, untreated Lyme disease can cause severe heart and nervous system problems and arthritis.

Dr. Gary Wormser is of the opinion that, unlike other vaccines, the Lyme vaccine needs to be administered in advance so that the tick that bites is unable to transmit the infection. The vaccine generally arrests the outer surface protein of the Lyme bacterium that is present in the tick’s gut, called OspA. It is said that a tick must bite someone, and after 36 hours the bacteria spreads to the victim. This enables the antibodies that are present in a vaccinated individual to attack the germs at the source. Other vaccines are administered after people are exposed to the disease. Dr. Gary is a Lyme expert at New York Medical College, but he is not part of the research.

Both Pfizer and Valneva have reported positive results. The test going on right now will show if the vaccine called VLA-15 works perfectly or not. Both companies intend to hire 6,000 people and place them in the Northeast, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden.An individual will receive three shots of the vaccine or a placebo, from now till spring, which is the beginning of the tick season. After a year, they will need to be administered a booster dose.

Anderson feels that a seasonal vaccine is what they are looking at as people need to have high antibody levels during the tick season.

According to Dr. Alan Kivitz, volunteers must be at least five years old and live in tick-infested areas. He heads a Lyme study site at the Altoona Center for Clinical Research in Duncansville, Pennsylvania. He meets a lot of patients who have a fear of contracting Lyme.

It should be known that the earlier vaccine that was withdrawn in 2002 and created by GlaxoSmithKline had an efficacy of 75%, and it was not very effective on children and was practically written off by vaccine experts.

This new vaccine from Pfizer-Valneva attacks the OspA protein and targets 6 Lyme strains in both Europe and the USA instead of one type as earlier. This study will take into account 2 tick seasons apart from separate research by University of Massachusetts scientists on pre-made Lyme fighting antibodies. Yale University researchers are also designing a vaccine that identifies a tick’s saliva and prevents it from hanging on to the skin and feeding. This vaccine has undergone animal testing.