New research shows that giving a stronger single dose of a live oral cholera vaccine could be an effective tool in controlling outbreaks more quickly.
Each year there are more than three million cases of cholera worldwide.
The standard regimen for protecting against cholera with existing non-living oral cholera vaccines includes administering two doses over a two-week period.
The latest University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) research was conducted in Mali and included 150 participants.
Researchers assessed the effectiveness (ability to stimulate vibriocidal antibody, an immune response that correlates with protection) of a single high-dose of live cholera vaccine CVD 103-HgR.
This was developed by UMSOM’s Center for Vaccine Development and licensed and manufactured by PaxVax, versus the standard two-dose killed vaccine approach.
While the two-dose inactivated vaccine approach has been used and made available for protecting against seasonal increases in cholera cases, a stronger single-dose live oral vaccine approach may be a more effective way to rapidly protect individuals in big outbreaks, the research found.
The work has been published in Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.
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