Clinical and experimental vaccine researchNov 12, 2025

Recent progress in developing vaccines for Zika virus

mRNA Technology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Updated Jun 27, 2026

Abstract

Essence

Zika vaccine development has advanced across several platforms, but no vaccine is yet approved.

Evidence

This updated review summarizes inactivated, live-attenuated, DNA, mRNA, viral-vector, and recombinant-subunit Zika vaccine candidates, including several that have entered clinical trials.

Caveat

Current low Zika incidence and uncertainty about future outbreaks make vaccine assessment, licensing, and commercial viability difficult.

Simplified

(ZIKV) infection as a cause of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome gained international attention during the 2015-2016 ZIKV epidemic in the Americas. However, over ten years later, there are still no approved ZIKV vaccines, leaving people worldwide defenseless against continued disease spread and potential outbreaks. Prospects for the assessment, licensing, and commercial viability of ZIKV vaccines are complicated by the low incidence of the virus infection at the moment and the uncertainty of future outbreaks. Here, we highlight recent advances in various vaccine platforms that have been developed against ZIKV, including inactivated vaccines, live-attenuated vaccines, DNA vaccines, mRNA vaccines, viral vector vaccines, and recombinant subunit vaccines, with several candidates progressing into clinical trials. This review provides an overview of the current status of ZIKV vaccine development and emphasize how these multiple vaccine platforms can be a powerful tool to react quickly to future pandemics.

Key numbers

vaccine candidates in clinical trials

Current vaccine candidates in clinical trials as of 2025.

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Funding

Competing interests

No competing interests reported.

PubMed

Recent progress in developing vaccines for Zika virus

Abstract

Key numbers

Full Text

Funding

Competing interests

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