November 9, 2023 has been marked as a historical day in the realm of medical science, as the United Stated Food and Drug Administration(FDA) has approved the first ever vaccine for Chikungunya: named Ixchiq. Chinkungunya is a virus transmitted from person to person by infectious mosquitoes. The vaccine is developed by Europe based Valneva, the company has secured the approval for individuals aged 18 or more.
The chikungunya vaccine will be administered to individuals in a single dose, it contains live but weakened version of the virus. Prior to the approval the company conducted 2 clinical trials to measure the efficacy of the vaccine, the trails were conducted in North America on 3500 participants.
Valneva has also submitted applications to get the vaccine approval in Europe to European Medicines Agency and is expecting a quick passage from there also. The live attenuated vaccine, VLA1553 is based on the La Reunion strain of Chikungunya which is typically an East Central and South African genotype. The study published in The Lancet on June 12, said that the vaccine has shown highly protective and impressive results in phase 3 human trial. The study also discussed that the vaccine has shown an impressive response rate of 98.9%