In the absence of approved vaccines and therapeutics for use in humans, Nipah virus (NiV) continues to cause fatal outbreaks of encephalitis and respiratory disease in Bangladesh and India on a near-annual basis. We determined that a single dose of a lipid nanoparticle nucleoside-modified messenger RNA vaccine encoding the soluble Hendra virus glycoprotein protected up to 70% of Syrian hamsters from lethal NiV challenge, despite animals having suboptimally primed immune responses before challenge. These data provide a foundation from which to optimize future messenger RNA vaccination studies against NiV and other highly pathogenic viruses.
Keywords: Nipah virus; CNS; Syrian hamster; brain; disease; hemorrhagic fever; lung; mRNA vaccine; neurological; respiratory; soluble Hendra virus glycoprotein; virus.
Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2019.