A Vaccine's Lifespan

About one person in four becomes seronegative ten years after a single dose of yellow fever vaccine.

In 2015, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed their policy for the vaccine combating yellow fever, known since its introduction over 80 years ago as 17D. The new guidelines removed the long-standing recommendation for recipients of 17D to receive a booster shot every ten years and made vaccination a “once-in-a-lifetime” dose. In 2016, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) followed suit, also instituting a change in guidelines.

How can a single vaccine flit between these two recommendations, requiring boosters on one hand and those providing life-long protection on the other? The answer begins but does not end with an understanding of the lifespan of a vaccine, which in the case of 17D can be every bit as dynamic and fluid as the lifespan of any of its individual hosts.

Dr. Bill Messer’s lab focuses on closely related mosquito transmitted flaviviruses, including the dengue viruses, Zika virus, and yellow fever virus. Despite 17D’s efficacy, we know remarkably little about how the vaccine elicits protection and the durability of that protection following yellow fever vaccination.

Dr. Messer’s group recently evaluated the durability of yellow fever specific antibodies up to 69 years post-vaccination. Dr. Messer’s group found that a surprising high number – about one person in four – actually become seronegative to yellow fever vaccination 10 or more years after a single dose of the vaccine.

Rather than undermine the CDC’s 2015 change in guidelines, this result underscores the importance of detailed studies to better understand why some people do develop long term immunity following flavivirus vaccination and others do not.

CGCHR Logo

Housed within the Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute, the Center for Global Child Health Research is committed to improving the outcomes of child health worldwide, with an especial focus on resource-poor settings and populations. Our means for engaging this goal is collaborative research in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of childhood infection. Our community begins with the excellence of our team at OHSU and extends to the network of child health researchers we are establishing throughout the world. 

Go Global

Help us fight the diseases that impact children around the world.