Plant-based vaccines against neglected tropical diseases

Abstract

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect the lives of millions of people worldwide, and endanger their health. Although several attempts have been accomplished to prevent some NTDs, these vaccines are not in the market yet. Vaccines against NTDs should be low cost and needle free to reduce the logistic cost of their administration in developing countries. Plant-based vaccines meet both the requirements: allow antigen production at low cost and also constitute an optimal delivery vehicle that may delay digestive hydrolysis of vaccine antigens. Approaches conducted by a number of research groups around the world to develop plant-based vaccines against rabies, cysticercosis, dengue, and helminthiasis are described in this chapter.