While endemic to the tropics, flaviviruses like Zika, dengue, West Nile or yellow fever virus are re-emerging pathogens of global health concern. Climate change and urbanization have largely contributed to the dissemination of their mosquito vector and Europe has in recent years been regularly confronted with autochthonous cases. Few vaccines are licensed to prevent flavivirus disease, but the yellow fever 17D (YF17D) vaccine has a unique track record of efficiency and safety. Intriguingly, despite its success, how YF17D induces immunity remains poorly understood. Yellow4FLAVI aims to fill the gaps in our understanding of the mechanism of action of this vaccine by linking the structure of the viral particle to the resulting host immune response, in order to learn about optimal vaccine design for flaviviruses in general.
Since social acceptance of vaccines is critical for their success, we will also develop optimal communication methods. This will provide us with the tools to tailor vaccine design not only to achieve optimal immune protection, but also to facilitate actual implementation.