Engineering Antiviral Vaccines

Vaccines and Antiviral Agents

A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vac‐ cine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is of‐ ten made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so...

Vaccines and Antiviral Drugs in Pandemic Preparedness

While measures such as closing schools and social distancing may slow the effects of pandemic influenza, only vaccines and antiviral drugs are clearly efficacious in preventing infection or treating illness. Unless the pandemic strain closely resembles one already recognized, vaccine will not be available early. However, studies can be conducted beforehand to address questions concerning vaccin...

Purification and Effectiveness of Vaccines and Antiviral Compounds

Pandemic influenza: overview of vaccines and antiviral drugs.

Pandemic influenza has become a high priority item for all public health authorities. An influenza pandemic is believed to be imminent, and scientists agree that it will be a matter of when, where, and what will be the causative agent. Recently, most attention has been directed to human cases of avian influenza caused by a H5N1 avian influenza virus. An effective vaccine will be needed to subst...

Allocating vaccines and antiviral medications during an influenza pandemic.

Influenza pandemics have been a regular occurrence throughout human history. 1 One difference between contemporary pandemics and those of the past is that today we have the capacity to develop life-saving pharmaceutical interventions in the form of vaccines and antiviral medications. Unfortunately, while these interventions should provide significant benefits to many people, the supply is likel...