EV71 vaccine, a new tool to control outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD)

On December 3rd 2015, the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) approved the first inactivated Enterovirus 71 (EV71) whole virus vaccine for preventing severe hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). As one of the few preventive vaccines for children's infectious diseases generated by the developing countries in recent years, EV71 vaccine is a blessing to children's health in China and worldwide. However, there are still a few challenges facing the worldwide use of EV71 vaccine, including the applicability against various EV71 pandemic strains in other countries, international requirements on vaccine production and quality control, standardization and harmonization on different pathogen monitoring and detecting methods, etc. In addition, the affordability of EV71 vaccine in other countries is a factor to be considered in HFMD prevention. Therefore, with EV71 vaccine commercially available, there is still a long way to go before reaching effective protection against severe HFMD after EV71 vaccines enter the market. In this paper, the bottlenecks and prospects for the wide use of EV71 vaccine after its approval are evaluated.