Neglected Diseases
Trachoma is an infectious eye disease caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. The infection can be spread by contact with infected eyes or nasal discharge, including via contact from flies and shared use of clothing and towels.
Trachoma is common among children and in areas where there is unclean water and poor sanitation. After repeat infection and without medical treatment, the eyelid can turn inwards, causing the eyelashes to rub against the eyeball, resulting in scarring, visual impairment or irreversible blindness.
An effective vaccine would be a breakthrough development, given that the goal of eliminating Trachoma as a public health problem is unlikely to be reached solely through the implementation of the existing SAFE (surgery; antibiotics; facial cleanliness; environmental improvement) strategy. The trachoma vaccine pipeline is at an early stage of development. Only a few candidates have reached beyond the concept stage, such as VD1-MOMP (‘TracVac’), designed to target ocular and genital serovars, which was found to be immunogenic in pre-clinical studies.
The trachoma vaccine pipeline remains at a very early stages of development. The EU-funded TracVac project, completed in 2021, demonstrated that a vaccine (VD1-MOMP) can induce a neutralising ocular immune response – a positive step forward for further vaccine development. However, no further research has begun since TracVac’s completion.