Zika: Which came first, the virus or the vaccine?

The Zika virus is spreading rapidly across the Americas with some warning that it will get worse as the weather warms, EPM’s Emily Hughes takes a look at some of the wild claims surrounding the Zika virus outbreak

The World Health Organisation (WHO), Medical Research Council (MRC) and big pharma companies such as Sanofi and Novartis have all rallied behind the search for a vaccine to fight this virus.

However, an article on Truth Kings reports that there is not only a vaccine for the virus already completed but also that the vaccine came first.

Conspiracy Theory site Truth Kings suggests that the pharmaceutical companies were more than prepared for the outbreak of the virus, with Bharat Biotech International filing a patent for a Zika virus vaccine that can produce antibodies to fight the virus.

Krishna Ella, Bharat Biotech managing director said in an interview: “On Zika, we are probably the first vaccine company in the world to file a vaccine candidate patent about nine months ago.”

The vaccine is set to be ready in 4 months pending approvals following laboratory testing, animal testing, and human testing.

This is where the news site starts to build the momentum of its conspiracy theory. Truth Kings said: “People really need to realise that we don’t live in a world of coincidences; we live in a world of financial opportunity.

“This virus is looking more and more like a perfect capitalistic prototype which may trump all others before it, including swine flu and the infamous ebola.”

Then the site goes another step with its conspiracy theory, by reporting that the reaction from organisations all over the globe is causing unneeded hysteria that will drive the need for the vaccine.

Truth Kings said: “The state of Florida declared a state of emergency. The United States, has reported roughly 50 cases of Zika. Forgive me for saying this, but how is it possible that only 50 cases exist in the entire country, yet one state, Florida, is under a state of emergency?”

However, as this outbreak is spreading across the Americas at such an alarming rate and has reached parts of Europe, medical organisations need to try and find a vaccine before the weather warms and creates a more hospitable environment for the Aedes mosquitoes that spread the virus.

European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) board member Nick Beeching from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine noted that Aedes mosquitoes are already responsible for huge epidemics of fevers due to dengue and chikungunya viruses in the tropics and for smaller outbreaks in Italy and France, so there may be potential for transmission of Zika in parts of Europe too.

He also said that it is not known whether other types of mosquito, which are more common in Europe, can act as vectors for Zika virus and research on this is urgently needed.

Today (11 Feb) the British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has also pledged its support to the WHO in countering the Zika outbreak as the WHO has declared that Zika constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

The WHO, MHRA, MCR are all calling on pharma companies to take up the mantle of developing treatments for the Zika virus with the MCR even making £1m available for research applications.

Novartis, Sanofi and many other pharmaceutical companies are taking up this call yet Truth Kings is adding them to its conspiracy theory because of this.

In Truth Kings article Sanofi has come under suspicion as the big pharma company, which produces hundreds of vaccines for viruses all over the world, is trying to adapt its Dengue vaccine to help fight Zika.

Truth Kings goes as far as to say “Sanofi SA, a France-based pharmaceutical, is already working on a Zika virus vaccine as well. The sharks are circling.”

I struggle to see what Truth Kings would recommend pharma companies and health organisations to do in a virus outbreak without it looking damning in its eyes.

Make a vaccine and they are part of the money-making conspiracy theory, yet if they don’t make a vaccine then they’re only interested in profits, not people.

The best way is surely to stay out of it – but where would that leave people and babies suffering the effects cause by the Zika virus?