Acinetobacter Vaccine

About Acinetobacter Vaccine

Acinetobacter baumannii vaccine development targets a multidrug resistant bacterium that causes infections particularly in hospitals and military settings. Acinetobacter infections among wounded soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated research. The bacterium is notoriously difficult to treat due to extensive antibiotic resistance. Vaccine candidates include outer membrane vesicle vaccines, conjugate vaccines, and protein subunit vaccines. The challenge is that Acinetobacter infections primarily affect immunocompromised and hospitalized patients, whose immune response to vaccines may be limited. The US Department of Defense has funded Acinetobacter vaccine research. No Acinetobacter vaccine has reached Phase 3 trials. The growth of antibiotic resistance makes vaccines against resistant bacteria increasingly important as antibiotics become less effective.