Overview of Experimental Vaccines and Antiviral Therapeutics for Henipavirus Infection

Hendra virus (HeV) and Nipah virus (NiV) are highly pathogenic paramyxoviruses, which have emerged in recent decades and cause sporadic outbreaks of respiratory and encephalitic disease in Australia and Southeast Asia, respectively. Over two billion people currently live in regions potentially at risk due to the wide range of the Pteropus fruit bat reservoir, yet there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics to protect against or treat henipavirus disease. In recent years, significant progress has been made toward developing various experimental vaccine platforms and therapeutics. Here, we describe these advances for both human and livestock vaccine candidates and discuss the numerous preclinical studies and the few that have progressed to human phase 1 clinical trial and the one approved veterinary vaccine.