Researchers at the OncoGen Center in Timisoara, a city in Western Romania, together with specialists from the University of Vienna (Austria) are working on creating a vaccine against ragweed allergy.

The researchers announced at a press conference organized last Friday, September 29, that sensitivity to pollen from ragweed has reached alarming proportions in the western part of the country, which is why they have been able to identify the allergenic primers of the ragweed plant and have begun work on creating the first vaccine, reports local News.ro.

Meanwhile, until the vaccine is ready, a first site alerting patients on the appearance of waves of pollen will be created in Timisoara. The system will operate based on the same principles as weather alerts, and may become operational next year.

“The alert system should work the same as weather alerts, with a mobile app that tells you what the situation is, in a specific way, and lets you see on your mobile phone the map of the way the pollen wave approaches,” said Virgil Păunescu, director of the OncoGen Center in Timisoara.

Currently, research is being done on the number of affected patients, the symptoms of these people, and the identification of the factors leading to these allergies. Next, the researchers will work on creating a prophylactic vaccine to reduce the number of people who will be affected by this allergy. The doctors want to do all this research at a center of excellence in allergy research, which could be set up in Timisoara.

Between 2008 and 2016, more than half of the 4,500 patients with allergies evaluated in Timis county were sensitive to ragweed.

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com