No Vaccine Found Till Date For These 4 Infections Apart From Coronavirus

While the fate of the Coronavirus Vaccine is still midway there are 4 other deadly infections for which no vaccine has been developed to date. It is scary, as these are the severe infections that a person cannot survive if infected, and people are still living with this reality. 

There is no clarity as when this pandemic will end or will there be any vaccine for this the only option the human being having at the moment is to prevent it from contracting or have a good treatment plan. 

According to the reports, doctors and researchers are doing the combined efforts to develop the vaccine for the COVID as soon as possible and there are quite a few in the testing phase but until its proved completely safe it won’t be entering into the market for the human use.  

What is the Time Frame for Vaccine to Get Ready 

According to the reports, it is the first in the history of mankind a vaccine like this is being developed at the pace it had never done before. The development and wrapping speed that is being deployed into this vaccine is first of its kind in the history of medical science. But other infections did not get such kind of attention from the researchers.     

There are still many infections the world is battling for which there are no vaccines available yet. Some of these diseases have been existing for a longer timeline than COVID-19 and carry far more dangerous repercussions and fatality risk. Here is the list of 4 such deadly infection for which no vaccine has been found as yet. 

HIV (AIDS) 

The HIV (Human Immune Deficiency virus) that causes a Decease called AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) is one of the deadliest viruses in the world that has affected around 36.9 million people globally from the time it started to spread in 1980s. Till date there is no vaccine available for this virus and only way to protect yourself is stay away from it.       

Many countries, including India, have managed to lower down the spread of the HIV infection with  help of several measures but the world is still far from seeing a vaccine being developed for the infection. 

One of the most recent studies underway in China, where scientists conducted trials using a CRISPR technology but no developments have been made on the same. There are also a lot of challenges with developing an effective HIV vaccine. HIV virus targets the immune system in a lot of different ways, so it’s not entirely possible to develop one with full efficacy.

MERSA (MERS) 

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) pandemic that shook the world since its origination in 2012 is yet anther deadly Virus that spreads just like the COVID-19 and affects the human respiratory system and had registered several hundreds of thousand casualties mainly in the middle eastern nations still waiting for the vaccine to come.  

The only reason the world never saw the development of a vaccine was because the authorities were able to put in measures and stop the transmission of the disease in time. According to the reports, following the prevention measures take by the authorities only couple of sporadic cases were registered.   

Interestingly, a very recent announcement regarding the development of a MERS vaccine was announced in April 2020 which could be repurposed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. According to researchers, the vaccine prototype, which works using an attenuated version of the virus showed promising results in clinical studies.

Encephalitis

Acute Encephalitis, the deadly disease which took the lives of more than 44,000 people between the years of 2008 and 2014 is still an infection at large. According to research, ACE has a fatality rate averaging around 6%. Still, no vaccine has been found for the infection which originates from life-threatening Japanese encephalitis virus. 

The disease is most famously responsible for causing fatalities in children and young adults in Indian states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh last year. The viral infection can also cause damage to the nervous system and brain functioning, including contusions, delirium, haemorrhage and other related complications.

SARS

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was an outbreak which originated in China in 2003 with symptoms similar to that of COVID-19. Both the viruses originate from the same family. However, unlike the latter, the SARS outbreak was not known to illicit asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic behaviour. While the infection was a large scale one, several scientists announced plans to develop a vaccine and undertook studies. However, once the vaccine development spread to later stages, funding dried up since the outbreak went away on its own and never came back.

Source: TOI