The quest for a cytomegalovirus vaccine continues

While the path to an effective COVID-19 vaccine can be described as a race, the long journey to develop a vaccine against cytomegalovirus (CMV) can be more seen as a quest, with innumerable obstacles and changes of direction. This journey presents us now with another promising vaccine candidate failing to provide the desired protective efficacy in a large phase 2b clinical trial. Safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of a replication-defective human cytomegalovirus vaccine, V160, in cytomegalovirus-seronegative women: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 2b trialV160 was generally well tolerated and immunogenic; however, three doses of the vaccine did not reduce the incidence of primary CMV infection in CMV-seronegative women compared with placebo. This study provides insights into the design of future CMV vaccine efficacy trials, particularly for the identification of CMV infection using molecular assays. Full-Text PDF