100 Days Mission for COVID-19 could have saved 8 million lives
CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations)
We want to stop future epidemics by developing new vaccines for a safer world.
More than eight million people who died during the COVID-19 pandemic might be alive today if the international community had accomplished the?100 Days Mission?to develop safe and effective new vaccines against the novel SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in three months.?
New research by modelling experts at Imperial College London and published in The Lancet Global Health found that a successful 100 Days Mission in response to COVID-19 would have had by far its greatest impact on the lives and livelihoods of people in the Global South. In lower middle-income countries the 100 Days Mission could have:
CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett said the findings should supercharge global commitments to the 100 Days Mission. “This work shows in the starkest terms why the world needs to be prepared to move faster and more equitably when novel pandemic disease threats emerge,” he said. “Investing in preparedness now to make the 100 Days Mission possible for future incipient pandemics will save millions upon millions of lives and protect the global economy against catastrophic losses.”
?? Press release available here
?? Read the full study here (??)
Marburg vaccine trial underway in Rwanda
A clinical trial of a candidate Marburg vaccine developed by the Sabin Vaccine Institute is underway in Rwanda as the country strives to bring its first-ever outbreak of the rare, often fatal Marburg virus to an end.
Within days of the Rwandan Government declaring the outbreak, negotiations between Kigali, the Sabin Vaccine Institute, the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, BARDA and international partners, including WHO and CEPI, led to 700 doses of Sabin’s candidate vaccine being shipped from Italy and arriving in Kigali on Saturday, October 5.??
The first doses of the candidate vaccine were administered to healthcare workers on the frontline of the Marburg outbreak on Sunday, October 6—just 10 days after Rwandan officials first notified international health authorities—reinforcing the fundamental importance of preparedness and strong partnerships that underpin the 100 Days Mission. ?
As of 30 October, 66 cases and 15 deaths have been confirmed and 1,618 doses of vaccine have been administered under a clinical trial protocol.
?? Read more about the response: MARBURG Virus Information - Rwanda Biomedical Centre
Promising human Rift Valley fever vaccine to enter Phase II clinical trials in Kenya
A promising human vaccine candidate against the potentially deadly Rift Valley fever, a mosquito-borne disease affecting countries across Africa, is set to begin Phase II?trials in Kenya. To date, this is the most advanced stage of testing a human Rift Valley fever vaccine has reached in an outbreak-prone area.
Funded by CEPI, a team of scientists at the University of Oxford and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)–Wellcome Trust Research Programme will lead the US$3.7 million trial of the vaccine—known as ChAdOx1 RVF.
While Rift Valley fever vaccines have been registered for animals, no vaccines are currently available or licensed for human use. Both the?World Health Organization?and?Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention?have identified Rift Valley fever as a priority disease for R&D. ChAdOx1 RVF becomes one of three Rift Valley fever vaccine candidates in CEPI’s portfolio.?
?? Press release available here
R&D and manufacturing news
The first children have been vaccinated in a Phase 2 clinical trial of Bavarian Nordic’s MVA-BN mpox vaccine in children aged two to 11 years in Democratic Republic of Congo. CEPI is providing funding of up to US$6.5 million to support the trial, which will evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine in children for the first time. Data generated by the study will support an extension of the use of the vaccine to include children, potentially expanding access to this vulnerable population.
Researchers at Stockholm-based Abera Bioscience are set to test whether their bacterial-based platform could strengthen intranasal vaccines being developed to protect against epidemic and pandemic threats. Supported by a new CEPI grant of up to US$1 million, Abera Bioscience will investigate the role of bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) in boosting a special type of protection—known as mucosal immunity—which scientists believe could be key to stopping the onward transmission of viruses.
Experts at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) are working with CEPI to bioengineer a commonly used approach to safely make protein antigens—components of vaccines that help trigger an immune response in the human body—in as little as two weeks. This is around eight to twelve times faster than the time currently taken to produce antigens for protein-based vaccines. CEPI is providing up to CAD $850,000 and the NRC is providing up to CAD $308,000 (in kind) to establish proof-of-technology for this project.
The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota is expanding its open-access?Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development?(R&D) Roadmap—an important tool created to guide the development of vaccines against coronaviruses. With US$3.2 million of CEPI funding, CIDRAP will monitor and evaluate R&D progress and catalyse efforts to develop broadly protective vaccines that are effective and long-lasting against currently circulating coronaviruses, as well as new coronaviruses and variants that may emerge in the future.?
Scientists at the UK’s University of Sheffield will receive up to ￡3.7 million from CEPI to establish proof-of-concept for RNAbox?, a specialised process designed to scale up production of mRNA vaccines at regional vaccine manufacturing sites.?The easily adaptable and automated process aims to improve the world’s pandemic readiness by helping to accelerate outbreak response and increase equitable access to future doses of different mRNA vaccines.
Scientists in Nigeria are expanding research into Lassa fever with the launch of a pioneering study designed to get a better idea of the variation in disease symptoms and how these compare to malaria and other infections found in the region.
The new research, led by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and local study sites, forms part of?Enable, the world’s largest Lassa fever study.?Enable?was created by CEPI and partners across West Africa to provide a more accurate picture of the disease burden in West Africa and help inform outbreak preparedness efforts, including the development of a Lassa vaccine.?
The Viral Most Wanted – Caliciviruses, Reoviruses and Astroviruses
Did you know that Norovirus, or the “Winter Vomiting Bug”, kills an estimated 200,000 people a year, including 50,000 children, and costs an estimated $60 billion globally each year due to healthcare costs and economic losses?
Then there are the huge disease burdens and death tolls of Human Astrovirus and Rotavirus—two more viral pathogens that attack the stomach and intestines.
While these viruses come from three different families of pathogens—the Caliciviruses, the Reoviruses and the Astroviruses—they share many common traits, not least the way they spread through the faecal-oral route and cause severe vomiting and diarrhoea.
100 Words On... Marburg virus
Marburg is similar to Ebola and comes from the same family of viruses—the?Filovirus family. Like Ebola, Marburg can cause haemorrhagic fever with very high temperatures, muscle pain and gastrointestinal symptoms, and often develops into severe and prolific internal and external bleeding. ?
Marburg was first identified in 1967 and has caused sporadic outbreaks in several African countries. While some people can survive Marburg infection, it is one of the deadliest known human diseases. On average, half of all those who become infected with it die, and in some outbreaks, this case-fatality rate has been as?high as 88 percent.
?? Read more: Marburg - what it is, and what it is not
???Open Calls for Proposals
?? Implementing partners for the Global South Leaders in Epidemic Analytics and Response Network (GS LEARN)
CEPI and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are seeking experts to offer training and mentorship activities to researchers and professionals in the Global South on epidemic and pandemic data analytics and infectious disease modelling.
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CEPI at the World Health Summit 2024
Watch this fascinating session on “Addressing Pandemic Threats Through the Lens of Climate Change”, which was moderated by Prof Jane Halton, Chair of CEPI’s Board.
Dr Jakob Cramer, CEPI’s Director of Clinical Development, took part in a discussion on the regional and global health responses to Mpox, including vaccination efforts.
Future of Health Conference 2024, Nigeria
Oyeronke Oyebanji, Head of Lassa Engagement at CEPI, chaired a fireside chat exploring collaborations for pandemic preparedness in West Africa.
?? Future of Health Conference 2024 (from 3:43:00).
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Managing director, Ted Bianco Consulting Ltd based in the United Kingdom & Honorary Professor, Monash University, Melbourne.
4 周I am sure the earlier development of a vaccine would have helped greatly, but only if this was accompanied by manufacture at the scale needed and price that could be afforded by LMICs. Not sure how any of the vaccines that were produced and licenced during the pandemic would have saved 800 million infections as none of them effectively abrogate transmission in spite of ameliorating many of the most serious disease manifestations.