Encephalitis

EEE vaccine is only available for horses and JE vaccine is available for all.

A Lymphatic filariasis vaccine in development is targeting an enzyme needed for the worms development.. This vaccine does not seem to be effective after infection is present. The aim of the treatment is to kill as many worms as possible in the blood and to prevent new infections in other people.
If adult worms are present a single dose of Diethylcarbamazine(DEC) and Ivermectin or albendazole is given. This can prevent worm infection for a whole year.
Daily washing of swollen limbs with soap and water help to keep the swollen areas clean and free from bacterial infection. Antibacterial creams are applied to any open sores.
Keeping your legs up increases drainage of lymphatic fluid and improves circulation.
The WHO is trying to treat everyone with yearly medication in countries where the infection is present.

Scientists say that a malaria vaccine could be available by 2010. An effective malaria vaccine has been developed and tested and cut the risk of developing severe malaria by 58% in 2,022 children in Mozambique.

The trial vaccine, called RTS,S/AS02A was tested on children between the age of 1 and 4.

The team followed up on 400 of the children and found the vaccine extended the time to first infection by 45%.

The vaccine is directed against the sporozoite form of the malaria parasite. After immunization, antibodies and white blood cells are produced which can prevent the sporozoite from surviving or from further development in the liver.

The vaccine for yellow fever contains a live virus. It is only given at special centers. Most people can be vaccinated if they are over 9 months of age. If babies are younger than 9 months there is a small risk that they may develop encephalitis from the live virus in the vaccine. Pregnant women, people allergic to eggs (the virus is incubated in eggs) or who have a poor immune systems (AIDS, leukemia) should not receive the vaccine. A small number of people>5% have a reaction from the vaccine about 5-10 days after receiving it. Usually the reaction consists of a mild fever and headache.
A single dose of vaccine lasts 10 years.
Yellow fever was identified as a mosquito born disease by Dr Walter Reed during the Spanish American War in 1898. There was an outbreak of yellow fever in Havana Cuba.
Dr Reed designed experiments to prove the relationship between mosquitoes and yellow fever by having volunteers sleep in dirty linen from yellow fever patients. The volunteers stayed healthy as long as they slept under nets.
Others volunteers were not so lucky. They slept on clean linen but without nets and were bitten by mosquitoes after the mosquitoes had dined on the sick patients. These volunteers became infected. After, these patients were kept in screened rooms and all breeding grounds of mosquitoes were destroyed.

There are many types of vaccines. There are living, attenuated (weakened) and killed vaccines.

For Rift Valley there is only a vaccine for cattle. Ribvarin is an antiviral drug that has been tested in laboratories successfully. The live Rift valley vaccine is given only once and gives life long protection. Unfortunately this is not good for pregnant animals. If the cattle receive the killed vaccine it needs multiple shots. Inactivated vaccine can be given to high risk lab workers but it is not licensed. A vaccine that is being tested now is called MP-12. It is a vaccine for humans. It is a live attenuated vaccine and it looks very promising.

Rift Valley Fever

Malaria

No dengue vaccine is available but attenuated (weakened) vaccine viruses have been developed. These can be used to make vaccines. Hopefully a dengue vaccine will be available in the next 5-10 years. It is hard to manufacture a vaccine because any one of the four dengue virus may cause the disease.