West Nile Breakthrough

West Nile virus

A vaccine which could provide immunity against the deadly West Nile disease has been created through research into a relatively harmless virus.

Dr Roy Hall, from UQ's School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences, and Dr Alex Khromykh, from the Sir Albert Sakzewski Virus Research Centre based at Brisbane's Royal Children's Hospital, created the vaccine from work they were doing on the Kunjin virus.

West Nile and Kunjin have similar genetic sequences, but Kunjin produces only rare, non-fatal cases of disease and as such provides an extremely stable vaccine.

West Nile is a mosquito-borne virus that causes flu-like symptoms and encephalitis. While it is yet to take a foothold in Australia, it has caused numerous human and equine fatalities since entering the United States in 1999.

To determine if exposure to Kunjin provided immunity to West Nile, Dr Hall, Dr Khromykh and colleagues injected mice with varying amounts of vaccine.

After 19 days, the scientists found that blood serum of mice given as little as 0.1 micrograms of the vaccine produced antibodies against both Kunjin and West Nile.

When challenged with lethal doses of West Nile virus, immunised mice were protected from disease.

The vaccine is expected to be further developed for human and veterinary use to help control the disease particularly in North America.

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