Design of hepatitis A vaccines

Hepatitis A is a major public health problem in many rapidly developing countries and it is still an important disease in many developed countries. Isolation of the virus in cell culture and access to reliable animal models has led to the development of several candidate vaccines. Both inactivated and attenuated vaccines have been developed which appear to be safe, antigenic and protective in laboratory animals. If studies in man support the data which have been obtained in other primates, the first commercially available vaccines are likely to be licensed within the next two years.