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>Advocates for self-spreading vaccines say they could revolutionize public health by disrupting infectious disease spread among animals before a zoonotic spillo

by scythe 5y ago

>Advocates for self-spreading vaccines say they could revolutionize public health by disrupting infectious disease spread among animals before a zoonotic spillover could occur—potentially preventing the next pandemic. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You have no (or at least not much) idea which disease is going to spill over from animals into humans. Unless the plan is to eliminate all diseases — which sounds dangerous — this technology might be applied to contain known zoonotic diseases (rabies and Lyme seem particularly notable) but seems unlikely to stop new ones. >CMVs also infect a host for life, induce strong immune responses yet do not often cause severe disease. Aren't these... like... uh, lemme check... >A substantial portion of the immune system is involved in continuously controlling CMV, which drains the resources of the immune system.[41][42] Death rates from infectious disease accelerate with age,[43] and CMV infection correlates with reduced effectiveness of vaccination.[44] Persons with the highest levels of CMV antibodies have a much higher risk of death from all causes compared with persons having few or no antibodies.[45][46] ...bad? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_betaherpesvirus_5#Pathogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_betaherpesvirus_5#Pathog...

fsh 5y ago
The article is about animal CMVs, not human CMV. "Nuismer and Redwood both say it is highly unlikely that a CMV-based vaccine could ever jump species given the virus’s biology. Although the evolutionary factors underlying CMV’s species-specificity are not entirely known, there has never been a documented case in the wild or in a laboratory of a successful cross-species CMV infection."
- scythe 5y ago
  The point isn't that it could jump to humans. The point is that the "less harmful" CMV carrier produces a lifelong infection with deleterious consequences for the health of the host. That could be a problem even if it never jumps to humans.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ada1981 5y ago
Fomite 5y ago
There are diseases with more and less zoonotic spillover potential, including some extremely predictable targets (hey cornoaviruses...), and projects to figure out the why and how of that zoonotic emergence.

by scythe 5y ago

fsh 5y ago

The article is about animal CMVs, not human CMV. "Nuismer and Redwood both say it is highly unlikely that a CMV-based vaccine could ever jump species given the virus’s biology. Although the evolutionary factors underlying CMV’s species-specificity are not entirely known, there has never been a documented case in the wild or in a laboratory of a successful cross-species CMV infection."

scythe 5y ago
The point isn't that it could jump to humans. The point is that the "less harmful" CMV carrier produces a lifelong infection with deleterious consequences for the health of the host. That could be a problem even if it never jumps to humans.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ada1981 5y ago

Fomite 5y ago

There are diseases with more and less zoonotic spillover potential, including some extremely predictable targets (hey cornoaviruses...), and projects to figure out the why and how of that zoonotic emergence.