Vaccine development and deployment strategies for emerging and neglected viral threats: Chikungunya, Oropouche, and Avian Influenza

Emerging and neglected viral pathogens, including avian influenza viruses such as H5N1 and H7N9, chikungunya, and the rapidly expanding Oropouche virus, pose escalating global health threats and present distinct challenges for vaccine development. This Research Topic focuses on the viral immunology underpinning next-generation countermeasures against these understudied pathogens, with particular emphasis on how viral immune-evasion mechanisms shape vaccine durability, breadth, and cross-protective potential.We particularly welcome contributions from vaccinologists, viral immunologists, structural virologists, systems vaccinologists, mucosal immunologists, and translational researchers working on emerging and neglected viral pathogens.The continuing emergence and geographic expansion of viruses such as Oropouche, alongside persistent concern about zoonotic influenza threats and the unmet need for broadly protective chikungunya vaccines, make this an appropriate time to bring together advances in viral immunology and vaccine development.We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Systematic Review articles addressing the following areas:• Identification of conserved B-cell and T-cell epitopes across high-threat viral families using immunoinformatics, structural virology, and related approaches to inform rational vaccine design. Original Research submissions reporting computational predictions should include experimental validation (in vitro and/or in vivo) or, at minimum, preliminary experimental evidence.• Induction and maintenance of tissue-resident memory T and B cells at mucosal barriers, including their contribution to early local immunity against respiratory viruses such as avian influenza.• Innate sensing pathways and the balance between protective and pathogenic inflammatory responses in infections caused by alphaviruses such as chikungunya and orthobunyaviruses such as Oropouche virus.• Immune correlates of protection relevant to vaccine development, including neutralizing antibodies, Fc-effector functions, and polyfunctional T-cell responses as potential surrogate endpoints for vaccine efficacy.• The influence of pre-existing immunity and immune imprinting on adaptive immune responses to emerging and neglected viral pathogens.• Adjuvant-mediated modulation of innate sensing and its effects on the quality, breadth, and durability of vaccine-induced immunity.• Population-level immunological heterogeneity and its implications for vaccine durability, breadth, delivery, and other vaccine-development factors relevant to deployment across diverse epidemiological settings.In this context, deployment refers to vaccine-development characteristics that influence real-world applicability, including durability, breadth of protection, delivery, population immunological heterogeneity, and correlates of protection rather than health-system rollout or uptake research.Submissions focused on health-system rollout logistics, vaccine hesitancy or uptake surveys, or pure epidemiological surveillance of chikungunya, Oropouche virus, or avian influenza, without a vaccine or therapeutic R&D angle, are outside the scope of this Research Topic.Original Research articles that are purely computational, without experimental validation of the predicted epitopes, are also outside the scope of this Research Topic. Topic editors: Yiu Wing KAM, Siew-Wai Fong Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86084/vaccine-development-and-deployment-strategies-for-emerging-and-neglected-viral-threats-chikungunya-oropouche-and-avian-influenza