The vaccine based on the inactivated virus against West Nile already exists for horses and one for human use was tested eight years ago. What has been lacking, until now, has been the will of the pharmaceutical industries to develop it. This is what Giorgio Palù , president of the Italian Medicines Agency (Aifa) and professor of Virology at the University of Padua explains in an interview taken by the news agencies.

For Palù - who in 2014 together with a group of researchers experimented with the vaccine based on surface protein E, which recognizes the cellular receptor (DC-SIGN, integrin) proving useful on macaques - several factors have discouraged investments in its production .

"The lack of attention from the pharmaceutical industry - he underlines - was due to the low pathogenicity as well as the very low lethality of the virus and its variable incidence, linked to seasonality". "Furthermore, the fact that West Nile is not a pandemic virus - he adds - is a fact that discourages the development of a vaccine". This is because "in 80% of cases the infected person is asymptomatic, in 20% develops a flu-like syndrome and in 1% it can lead to a meningo-encephalitic syndrome." About 1 in 10 of this minimal portion - he concludes - it can lead to serious consequences ".

(Unioneonline / vl)

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