Emerging and reemerging viral diseases: Developments and future perspectives of plant-based vaccines

The reemergence of human infectious viruses such as SARS-CoV2, influenza and monkeypox are considered as a huge threat to mankind and vaccine development is the only preventive strategy available against these viral diseases. However, the lesson we learnt from the recent pandemic is the necessity to address the gap between demand and supply ratio of vaccines. Thereby it is primary task for the pharmaceutical industries to increase the supply of vaccines much faster to compensate the global need. The traditional vaccine pipeline including cell lines, chick embryos and bacterial production are much complex industrial processes and cold chain supply vaccines cannot reach patients in remote areas. Around 1.1 billion vaccine doses are wasted globally due to lack of cold chain supply. The need for the novel vaccine manufacturing platform to overcome this limitation is still superficial. Plant molecular farming is an ideal choice for rapid preparedness, cost-effective and flexible vaccine production for emerging and reemerging viruses. Also, plant cell encapsulation technology will allow us to develop thermal stable and oral deliverable vaccines for the global needs. This article comprehensively summarizes the current and future perspectives of plant-based vaccine development for emerging and reemerging infectious viruses.