New Hantavirus Vaccine in the Works

A US pharmaceutical company Modern confirmed that it has been working on the development of hantavirus vaccine in collaboration with the Vaccine Innovation Center of Korea University College of Medicine (VIC-K). This comes after spreading of hantavirus occurred on a Dutch cruise ship that left Argentina and disembarked passengers and crew in the Canary Islands on May 10. At least three people aboard the MV Hondius died, and several cases were reported to be fatal.

Moderna is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company that developed a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the announcement that Moderna was developing a hantavirus vaccine using the same technology, the drugmaker’s stock rose from $49 on May 7 to $55 the next day. But it is important to note that Moderna did not start the vaccine project after the spread of MV. Hondius. In fact, the manufacturer has done this project with VIC-K in 2023.

Fighting for Vaccines

The outbreak of hantavirus in the high seas has been one of the biggest global events in recent weeks, which means many people around the world have just learned about the existence of the virus – but it is not a new arrival. In fact, hantavirus has been a viral pathogen for many years. Transmission, especially through the droppings, urine, or saliva of infected rats, can cause fever and renal syndrome (common in Asia or Europe) or hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (common in the Americas). Actor Gene Hackman’s wife may be one of the most famous people of all time he died from the latter disease, but it is not a special thing. Generally, hantaviruses cause circulation 50,000 seriously and often kills illness worldwide every year. So-called New World hantaviruses, such as Andean hantavirus (ANDV), are common in South America and can reach a death rate of 40 percent; ANDV is the only hantavirus that can cause human-to-human transmission, and the World Health Organization recognized variation in MV. Hondius.

There is currently no vaccine against ANDV, and the Spanish Society of Immunology emphasizes that “there is no approved hantavirus vaccine in Europe, the United States, or Latin America.” Treatment options depend on viral load, underlying immunological factors, or clinical management of symptoms.

South Korea is a little different from this picture. The country reports 300 to 400 cases a year, mostly among young men in their 20s and 30s, and the country’s health authorities have included the virus in their list of nine threats to prepare for the future. An older-generation vaccine called Hantavax is available in Korea, but its low potency and production methods – derived from animal brains – keep it far from modern standards.

South Korea was the starting point for Moderna’s highest-profile collaboration in the industry. The biotech company VIC-K has signed research and development cooperation in September 2023 led by the US company’s mRNA Access initiative, a program that provides access to mRNA vaccine candidates to academic groups working to combat emerging or neglected infectious diseases.

The mechanism of the collaboration works as follows: The Korean group provides the hantavirus antigenic sequence information and Moderna provides the corresponding mRNA. Preliminary results of this preliminary study are already available. In February 2025, Park Man-sung’s team from the Department of Microbiology confirmed that test levels prohibited hantavirus illness in mice.

A Vaccine That May Take Years to Arrive

The distance between the mouse experiment and a vaccine approved for humans is huge, especially if there is no more urgent information about the epidemic or the government’s support for Operation Warp Speed. The vaccine is still in the preclinical phase, meaning it has yet to begin human trials and faces significant financial and regulatory hurdles before that.

In addition, hantaviruses are diverse and have different geographic distributions. Developing a vaccine capable of protecting against multiple strains is a difficult task. For this reason, this international collaboration wants to develop a different vaccine, more effective than the vaccines available in Asia.