Seasonal influenza continues to have a huge annual impact in the United States, accounting for tens of millions of illnesses, hundreds of thousands of excess hospitalizations, and tens of thousands of excess deaths. Vaccination remains the mainstay for the prevention of influenza. In the United States, 2 types of influenza vaccine are currently licensed: trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine ...

The bacterial ghost system is a novel vaccine delivery system unusual in that it combines excellent natural intrinsic adjuvant properties with versatile carrier functions for foreign antigens. The efficient tropism of bacterial ghosts (BG) for antigen presenting cells promotes the generation of both cellular and humoral responses to heterologous antigens and carrier envelope structures. The sim...

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), a large group of food grade microorganisms, have recently been developed to express reactive antigens, which are intended to be used for vaccination. Immunological effects of these vaccines depend on the amount of the expressed antigenic protein loaded on the strains utilized for the delivery. Several factors including gene choice, cloning vector, and expression syst...

Neosporosis is caused by the intracellular protozoan parasite Neospora caninum. This major disease-causing pathogen is responsible for inducing abortion in cattle, and these adverse events occur sporadically all over the world, including Japan. Currently, there are no vaccines on the market against infection with N. caninum. Because live and attenuated vaccines against N. caninum have had safet...

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is the only preventive treatment for tuberculosis in humans, but this live vaccine confers variable protection against pulmonary tuberculosis in adults. Advances in the understanding of Mycobacterium tuberculosis immunopathogenesis have renewed hopes of developing new prophylactic vaccines conferring better protection than BCG. The authors describe here state-of-t...

OBJECTIVES To summarise the current status of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) vaccine development and provide a discussion of the potential benefits and limitations of genital herpes vaccines. METHODS Literature review. RESULTS Genital herpes simplex virus infection has a complex pathogenesis that has contributed to it becoming a serious worldwide problem. In an attempt to control the pr...

In 1997, the avian influenza virus (AIV) subtype H5N1 was first reported to infect humans.1 Up to 3 March 2015, the cumulative number of confirmed human cases of H5N1 was 784, with 429 deaths. There is no evidence that H5N1 viruses can transmit efficiently from person to person.2 Therefore, the key to prevention of a human H5N1 pandemic is to first control the H5N1 virus in birds. Traditionally...

Oral vaccination enables pain-free and self-administrable vaccine delivery for rapid mass during pandemic outbreaks. Furthermore, it elicits systemic mucosal immune responses. This protects against infection at surfaces, which may further enhance protection minimize the spread of disease. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract presents a number prospective inductive sites targeting, including oral cav...

0