Urinary Tract Infections, or UTIs, are among the most common bladder infections, and they disproportionately affect women or people with female internal anatomy. It is estimated that 40 to 60 percent of women will experience a UTI in their lifetime, and one in four are prone to repeat infections.

People who experience reoccurring UTIs are more likely to report experiences of depression, stress, anxiety as well as sexual dysfunction and physical disabilities, often impacting their productivity and quality of life. Urinary tract infections are often treated with antibiotics. However, this incurs the risk of acute and chronic side effects (such as allergies and GI symptoms), costs and also promotes antibiotic resistance - making these drugs less effective with repeated use.

 Clearly, we need more non-antibiotic options. Well, thankfully, there has been an emergence of a new sublingual vaccine, called MV140, developed the Spanish pharmaceutical company Immunotek, which is spray administered under the tongue. You can think of it like a vaccine-by-mouth – and its even pineapple flavour!

It contains inactivated whole-cell bacteria from four of the major species that cause UTIs Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterococcus faecalis and Proteus vulgaris and is administered daily with two sprays under the tongue for a 3 month period. The vaccine works by inducing protective antibodies and activating beneficial immune responses both systemically and locally in the bladder. 

Up until now there have only been relatively short-term studies on MV140 and these have shown that MV140 can safely reduce the risk of UTIs, decrease antibiotic use, lower overall management costs, and improve quality of life in women with reoccurring UTIs, often referred to as rUTIs - this is defined as three or more UTIs in 12 months (or two or more in 6 months) which affects around 3% of females with a UTI.

That's not all, more research is being done into UTI prevention and treatment, including:

• Two studies which looked back at the medical records of women who had recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs). They found that women who took a daily dose of the UTI Vaccine for three months had a much lower chance of getting another UTI over the next 15 months compared to women who took antibiotics for six months. In the UTI Vaccine group, 35-90% of women remained UTI-free, while in the antibiotic group, none of the women were UTI-free.
•  Three other studies followed women with recurrent UTIs who were treated with the UTI Vaccine. They found that 33-78% of these women did not get another UTI for 9-24 months after taking the UTI Vaccine.

The good news?

Now for the first time, a long-term observational study has been completed by the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, England. It involved a small study of the 72 women and 17 men who participated in a trial of MV140 and findings were presented at the European Association of Urology Congress in Paris on April 6 (but yet to be peer-reviewed). It identified that of the total 89 participants in the MV140 trial, 54 per cent remained UTI-free nine years after receiving the vaccine. The remaining 46 per cent had fewer, less severe UTIs.