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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 10, 2026

Expression and Purification of Virus-like Particles for Vaccination

Expression and Purification of Virus-like Particles for Vaccination

Published on: June 2, 2016

Vaccines for the common cold.

Daniel Simancas-Racines¹, Claudia V Guerra, Ricardo Hidalgo

¹Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud Eugenio Espejo, Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial, Quito, Ecuador. danielsimancas10@gmail.com

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

|June 13, 2013

Summary

Current vaccines show no effectiveness in preventing the common cold in healthy individuals. More research is needed to determine if any vaccines can safely prevent common cold infections.

Area of Science:

Virology
Immunology
Public Health

Background:

The common cold is a frequent upper respiratory tract infection with significant global morbidity.
Developing vaccines is challenging due to viral variability and multiple causative agents.
Efficacy and safety data for common cold prevention interventions in healthy individuals remain uncertain.

Purpose of the Study:

To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of vaccines for preventing the common cold in healthy populations.

Main Methods:

Searched multiple databases including CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and LILACS up to January 2013.
Included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing virus vaccines for common cold prevention in healthy people.
Two independent reviewers assessed quality and extracted data, with disagreements resolved by a third author.

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Main Results:

One RCT involving 2307 healthy participants was analyzed, comparing an adenovirus vaccine to a placebo.
No statistically significant difference in common cold incidence was observed between the vaccine and placebo groups (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.45 to 2.02).
No adverse events associated with the live adenovirus vaccine were reported in the trial.

Conclusions:

A significant lack of evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of vaccines for preventing the common cold in healthy individuals.
The single RCT identified had a high risk of bias and did not demonstrate a difference between vaccine and placebo groups.
Further well-designed, adequately powered RCTs are necessary to establish the efficacy and safety of common cold vaccines before any recommendations can be made.