OWA CITY, Iowa (KWQC) – The University of Iowa is one of three sites in the United States that will be enrolling participants for a clinical trial of an experimental vaccine for a debilitating inflammatory virus called chikungunya.
Researchers will enroll healthy adult volunteers to participate in the Phase 1/2 trial, which is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and is being conducted at several NIAID-funded Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units. The experimental vaccine was developed by Themis Bioscience of Vienna, Austria.
Chikungunya virus has been endemic in East Africa at least since it was first discovered in the 1950s. Chikungunya arrived in the Caribbean in late 2013, and has affected more than 2 million people in the Americas as of March 2017, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Although chikungunya is rarely fatal, the mosquito-transmitted virus causes an intense inflammatory reaction resulting in severe joint pain, fever, rash, and muscle pain. While most symptoms usually resolve in days, the joint inflammation can linger.
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