Major test of first possible Lyme vaccine in 20 years begins

[BrianA]

everything in the news is "Major" now apparently 😀

 

"In small, early-stage studies, Pfizer and Valneva reported no safety problems and a good immune response. The newest study will test if the vaccine, called VLA15, really protects and is safe. The companies aim to recruit at least 6,000 people in Lyme-prone areas including the Northeast U.S. plus Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.

 

...

 

Volunteers can be as young as 5 and should be at high risk because they spend a lot of time in tick-infested areas, such as hikers, campers and hunters"

 

https://apnews.com/article/science-health-ticks-73fab8e29f3e2243c2db5bc33b3265e1

[IgorF]

Hm, according to the article in Plotkin's Vaccines (7th ed. 2018) there were already studies with OpsA in 90ies and despite the expected "mechanics" of this approach worked ok these vaccines were rather "1st generation" and they were probably expected to be administered with 3 initial shots and a buster every 2 years. Also US strains and EU strains (3 active) were different thus no cross-protection observed. In EU 2 perspective studies also created something and then closed the projects (no idea why).

On the other hand, Borelia with its unique abilities to move against the blood flow, cross the bbb, hide from the immunity mechanisms and so on is a really tough beast to beat, so if the newer vaccs will be not much better than the old studied this could be still a good news.