An Egyptian pharmaceutical firm is developing a potential vaccine against the deadly Ebola strain raging in the DR Congo, it announced Thursday. Minapharm will receive up to $16.5 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to work on a vaccine to combat the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, they said in a joint statement. The candidate vaccine is designed by ProBioGen, a Berlin-based subsidiary of Minapharm. It is the fifth Bundibugyo candidate vaccine being funded by CEPI, in the scramble to find tools to rein in the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The US$16.5 million is set to advance it through the laboratory stages and on into a so-called Phase 1 clinical trial -- small-scale testing on humans. The trial -- to determine its safety, and its ability to provoke an immune response -- is expected to take place in Africa. There are no specific vaccines or treatments for Bundibugyo, which is spreading faster than attempts to control it can catch up. There have been more than 5,600 confirmed cases in the DR Congo, including more than 2,700 deaths, since the outbreak was declared on May 15. “Bundibugyo virus is now driving the largest Ebola outbreak DRC has ever faced,” said Jean Kaseya, head of the African Union’s public health agency. “A vaccine candidate advanced by an African company is exactly the kind of capability our continent needs -- not just for this outbreak, but so that Africa can develop and manufacture the tools it needs to protect its own people,” the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director general said in the statement. Five jabs in the pipeline Oslo-based CEPI is funding four other Bundibugyo candidate jabs, which are in various stages of development and use a range of vaccine technologies. They are being developed by Moderna, using mRNA technology; the University of Oxford and Serum Institute of India, using the ChAdOx platform; and one each from Hilleman and Public Health Vaccines, which both use rVSV technology. The Minapharm candidate vaccine uses the MVA platform and is the only one designed to induce both B- and T-cell responses for long-lasting immunity. The different technology options “maximise the likelihood of developing a safe and effective shot that could help bring this devastating crisis under control”, the statement said. CEPI hopes at least two Bundibugyo vaccines could come through the trials and be good enough for the World Health Organization to approve for use. The WHO has meanwhile recommended a full-scale human trial in the DRC of the only existing approved Ebola vaccine to see if it offers cross-protection against Bundibugyo. Ervebo has proved safe and efficacious against the more common Zaire strain of Ebola virus, and WHO experts said early data, notably from animal trials, showed it may also give some protection against Bundibugyo.
