Viruses causing dengue, Zika, yellow fever and West Nile fever are transmitted by mosquitoes. Annually, they cumulatively infect half a billion people, cause 250,000 deaths, and threaten nearly the entire human population, representing a tremendous global health burden. More alarmingly, in a context of human-driven global changes, these viral threats will intensify with larger and more frequent epidemics, potentially leading to pandemics in the EU, will expand with geographic spreading of the mosquito vectors and encroaching the entire EU, and will multiply with the likely emergence of yet-unknown mosquito-borne viruses. Improving pandemic preparedness and response to these emerging and re-emerging diseases is a top priority both for the EU and WHO. However, there are no effective interventions against all these mosquito-borne viruses and current vaccines targeting viral proteins have severe safety issues. FLAVIVACCINE’s ambition is to develop a novel, broad-spectrum, mosquito saliva-targeted vaccine candidate that protects against multiple different flaviviruses and is ready for clinical evaluation. FLAVIVACCINE will define the immunogenicity of the pan-flavivirus target, develop and characterize a vaccine candidate against multiple flaviviruses, and prepare it for clinical evaluation. To reach these goals, FLAVIVACCINE creates a unique interdisciplinary environment of ten public and private institutions, including Universities, Research Institutions and a Vaccine Developer, from seven countries to cover all the required scientific expertise and knowledge in cell biology, virology, immunology and vaccinology. The pan-flavivirus vaccine candidate that will be validated against dengue, yellow fever, Zika and West Nile diseases in several preclinical models, together with the knowledge and networks resulting from FLAVIVACCINE, will have short- and long-term impact on the EU ability to combat epidemic and pandemic viral threats, and protect communities and citizens in the EU and around the world.
