A Lyme disease vaccine could be available soon, Axios reports.
Earlier this month, Moderna announced two new development candidates for mRNA vaccines against Lyme disease.
Pfizer and Valneva also have a vaccine candidate — VLA15 — that’s already in late-stage clinical trials, but many of their clinical trial participants, including children as young as 5 years old, were discontinued due to violations of Good Clinical Practice in how trial sites were run by third-party operators.
However, Pfizer and Valneva say they can still apply for approval from the Food and Drug Association as early as 2025.
Lyme disease is the “most common vector-borne disease in the United States” with symptoms such as fever, chills, headaches, fatigue, muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes or rashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If left untreated, long-term symptoms can include facial palsy, heart palpitations or irregular heartbeat, nerve pain and inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.
There’s concern around the increase in cases of Lyme disease, which has nearly doubled since 1991, particularly due to climate change.
“Studies provide evidence that climate change has contributed to the expanded range of ticks, increasing the potential risk of Lyme disease, such as in areas of Canada where the ticks were previously unable to survive,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “The life cycle and prevalence of deer ticks are strongly influenced by temperature.”
The agency continues to explain, “Because tick activity depends on temperatures being above a certain minimum, shorter winters could also extend the period when ticks are active each year, increasing the time that humans could be exposed to Lyme disease.”
The increased life span of ticks can turn Lyme disease from being just a summertime problem to a year-round issue.
“Untreated, Lyme disease can be very serious,” Leana Wen, an emergency physician and a professor at George Washington University, told Axios Today. “Some people develop debilitating symptoms that really impact their lives.”
More than two decades ago, in 2002, the only vaccine available for Lyme disease, LYMERix, was pulled from the market and discontinued by the manufacturer due to “insufficient consumer demand,” according to the CDC.
Demand for the vaccine reportedly decreased due to adverse effects such as arthritis as well as general anti-vaccine sentiments, but the FDA found “insufficient evidence to support a causal relationship” between the effects and the vaccine, researchers concluded in the journal Epidemiology & Infection in 2007.
“However, the public’s perception of potential risks, heavily influenced by the negative press coverage and limited awareness of the benefits of the vaccine, decreased consumer demand for the vaccine,” the experts added at the time.
The removal of LYMERix, made by the former SmithKline Beecham, from the market left people without any alternatives besides antibiotics for after a tick bite such as doxycycline, and drug makers wouldn’t make a new vaccine due to potential market risk, Nadine Bowden of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases told Axios.
“Is it worth the investment and worth the risk?” Bowden asked.
Aside from the vaccine, researchers are looking into other alternatives to protect against Lyme disease, including a human monoclonal antibody as pre-exposure prophylaxis for Lyme disease, more sensitive tests that look at biomarkers the body releases when it has Lyme disease, as well as vaccinating mice in tick-infested areas with the hopes of spreading the immunity to the ticks themselves.
Currently, the most efficient way to protect against Lyme disease is by using insect repellent and wearing clothes that cover your skin in areas with high tick populations, as well as checking yourself for ticks.