Cytomegalovirus vaccine

Congenital cytomegalovirus disease is an unsolved public health problem, un likely to be solved by means other than immune prophylaxis. Development of a vaccine has been hampered by low awareness of the problem, which is cause d by the often delayed detection of abnormalities after birth. Nevertheless , cytomegalovirus vaccine development is active. An attenuated, live vaccin e has been studied extensively, and an improved strain may result from gene tic manipulation. An immunogenic viral glycoprotein (gB) vaccine is current ly in clinical trial to determine if antibodies alone will be protective. T he idea of a combined vaccine has been proposed, in which a canarypox recom binant containing several cytomegalovirus genes is used both to generate ce llular immunity and to prime for augmented antibody responses to the viral glycoprotein. Finally, DNA plasmids containing cytomegalovirus genes are be ing investigated for their utility as vaccines.