TOPIC: MEDICINE'S NEXT BIG THING: PLAGUE VACCINE

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The next upcoming experiment....

 

 

 

 

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Contributor: Roxanne Stein

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Last Update: 10/16 7:06 am

 

TOPIC: MEDICINE'S NEXT BIG THING: PLAGUE VACCINE

REPORT: MB #2896

BACKGROUND: The bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that is

spread by infected fleas that live on rodents. During plague outbreaks, infected

fleas that have lost their normal hosts to death, look for other blood sources

to feed on. This increases human's and other animal's risk of exposure. Today,

plague epidemics still occur in developing countries, especially in rural

locations. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), every year 1,000

to 2,000 cases are reported throughout the world. In the United States, human

cases of the plague are intermittent with an average of 13 cases reported each

year. Most incidents occur in the western states. The last rat-borne epidemic in

the country occurred in Los Angeles in 1925.

The main symptom of the plague is developing buboes, or enlarged lymph nodes

that are often hot-to-the touch and painful. If no therapy is given to a victim,

the result is often a progressive and fatal illness. As the disease advances, it

leads to blood infection followed by lung infection or plague pneumonia, which

more than half the time results in death. Plague victims should be isolated and

cases should be reported to local and state health departments. Currently, the

only way to treat the plague is with antibiotics. The preferred ones are

streptomycin or gentamycin, but others are used as well.

PREVENTING THE NEXT OUTBREAK: Although not many cases of the plague exist today,

creating a vaccine for it has been put on the fast track. The CDC lists the

plague as one of the top-ranked bioterrorism threats, just second to anthrax.

Currently, there is no vaccine commercially available to the public, but

researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed one that has

shown a tremendous ability to halt the illness.

Henry l, Ph.D., a molecular biologist at the University of Central Florida

in Orlando, Fla., and his research team, created an oral vaccine that may be

available to the public in just a few years. The vaccine was studied on rats

that were vaccinated at UCF and then transported to the U.S. Army Medical

Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in land, where they were exposed

to a massive dose of the plague -- 50 billion spores. Within three days, the

rats that were unvaccinated died. Twenty-five percent of those give the

injectable version of the vaccine survived, but incredibly, 100 percent of the

rats given the oral vaccine lived with no traces of the plague remaining. The

vaccine is made by genetically engineered plant cells with a protein from

Yersinia pestis. Therefore, developing immunity to the plague does not require

being exposed to the bacteria itself. Dr. l's lab has also developed an

injectable vaccine for anthrax and oral

vaccines for cholera and malaria.

Randi J. Airola, © 517-819-5926