"Volunteers willingly infected with Zika to accelerate vaccine and treatment research"
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have successfully infected human volunteers with the Zika virus in a controlled human infection model, a significant step towards understanding the disease and developing vaccines and treatments. The study, deemed safe and scientifically important by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization, aims to address the lack of knowledge about Zika transmission patterns and the mental health burden on pregnant women in endemic regions. The infected volunteers developed mild illness, and the next step is to evaluate the virus in male volunteers to assess its infectiousness in semen. Several vaccine manufacturers have expressed interest in using the strains to test experimental products.
