4 infections apart from COVID-19 which still don’t have a vaccine

The coronavirus is spreading across the world at such an alarming rate, it has put public health authorities in a tizzy and making doctors and researchers collate efforts to develop a vaccine soon. Without a preventive measure in sight, or a good treatment plan, we don’t really know when the pandemic might see its end.

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While it’s the first time a vaccine like this is being developed or we are seeing vaccine developments speed up at such warp speed, there still are some 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.

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Human Immuno Deficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) is one of the deadliest virus affecting 36.9 million people globally which caused rampant infection ever since it started to spread in the 1980s. While many countries, including India, have managed to lower down the spread of the infection with a host of measures, the world is still far from seeing a vaccine being developed for the infection. The most recent studies were 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.

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Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which spread out just like COVID-19 is yet another deadly pandemic which left its mark of casualties ever since originating in 2012. While it was mostly seen in the middle eastern nations, 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. Ever since, only a few sporadic cases were seen and more or less, the infection could be contained. 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.

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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.

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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.

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