Lyme disease has come into focus due to climate change

Climate change has resulted in milder winters and longer summers in many parts of the world

Climate change is causing more cases of tick-borne Lyme disease. Renowned drugmaker Valneva is working on a vaccine for the same. Although Valneva secured British regulatory and European Union approval, both shied away from contracts worth more than a billion dollars combined. The French firm had marketed its COVID-19 vaccine as an alternative for individuals who had refused shots based on newer messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which aids cells in making a protein that will trigger an immune response.

But unlike the neck-to-neck competition with major international drugmakers such as Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer to roll out the vaccines to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, there are no other established vaccines for either Lyme disease or Chikungunya. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, climate change has resulted in milder winters and longer summers in many parts of the world, including Europe and North America, infections that spread through the so-called vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks, are on the rise. Valneva Chief Executive Thomas Lingelbach commented that there had been a considerable increase in the prevalence of disease-causing vectors. He told Reuters in an interview, "Global warming is certainly a key - if not the driving force."