NEW HAVEN, Conn. — There has not been a vaccine against Lyme Disease in 20 years but that could soon change.
Pfizer is teaming up with a French company to develop a vaccine, but Yale University researchers in New Haven are working on one too.
Yale researchers are in the early stages of designing a Lyme Disease vaccine that can recognize a tick's saliva. In animal testing, the saliva sparked a skin reaction.
"What that will mean is if you're bitten a number of times all of a sudden, the tick will not be able to stay on for the 36 to 72 hours required to transmit the Lyme agent," said Dr. Peter Krause of the Yale Schools of Medicine and Public Health.
He said, the aim is to have this vaccine also prevent other tick-borne illnesses, "because when the tick can't feed properly it won't be able to transmit any of these or most of these pathogens," Krause added.
But, he noted this vaccine could be many years from the market. However, Pfizer is presently developing a Lyme vaccine that is headed to stage three trials.
"The hope is the vaccine will prove to be as effective and safe as it has been so far demonstrated and it will be ready for release probably in 2025," Krause said. "And the hope is the vaccine will prove to be as effective and safe as it has been so far demonstrated and it will be ready for release probably in 2025."
A vaccine can't come soon enough for Dr. Goudarz Molaei, of the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station.
"With having nearly a half million people (across the U.S.) being treated annually for Lyme Disease only, this is not something that we can take lightly," Molaei said.
Among its tasks: the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station in New Haven studies and tracks tick activity.
"Initially, in March, we predicted that we would have higher tick activity," Molaei said.
But the dry summer has kept the number of ticks down across most of the state.
The University of Massachusetts Medical School is working on a preventative shot, which has been 100% effective and animals so far.
Tony Terzi is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at tterzi@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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