CEPI allocates $62 million to accelerate three Bundibugyo Ebola vaccine candidates

CEPI announced it will provide roughly $62 million to three groups to speed the development of vaccines targeting the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The outbreak has no licensed vaccine; the only approved Ebola vaccine, Merck’s Ervebo, protects against the Zaire strain, not Bundibugyo. The new funding will support manufacturing and early testing of candidate vaccines.

Even with the funding, clinical trials for the Bundibugyo vaccines are expected to begin months away, highlighting the challenges of creating a vaccine for a virus that has caused only two recorded outbreaks, in 2007 and 2012.

Those past outbreaks were rare, but the current spread underscores the need for specific countermeasures against this less common ebolavirus variant.