“In just 10 years, the world has transformed Ebola from a global emergency to a disease that can be halted,” said Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.Sepi). Dr. Hatchett said a few weeks ago that MSD (known as Merck & Company in the United States and Canada)’s Ebola vaccine announced Just days after an outbreak of the deadly disease was declared in the country. Democratic Republic of the Congo.

However, despite this progress, major challenges remain. It has become very popular since 2010. filovirusThe family of Ebola and its deadly relatives, which include the states of Marburg and Sudan, occurs at some point every year, and the disease is extremely deadly.

” MSD Zaire Ebola Virus Vaccine “The vaccines developed during the 2014-2016 outbreak are great vaccines. They provide immunity after one shot, are very safe, and have been used by hundreds of thousands of people, but they have some significant limitations,” Dr. Hatchett said, explaining that the vaccine manufacturing process was very old. This vaccine was developed during a crisis, so naturally a proven process was used. But scale is less straightforward, and vaccines are expensive and have cold-chain requirements that complicate delivery in harsh environments, he said.

Dr Hatchett said this is why CEPI, MSD and Hillman Institute partnered to update the vaccine.

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“Through our partnership, we are working to improve the manufacturing process to increase the supply of the Ebola vaccine, make it more affordable, and improve its thermal stability. These improvements will make the vaccine more sustainable and easier to use, and will also make it easier to scale up production as needed in the event of another outbreak,” he said.

One major barrier is the ultra-cold chain requirement.

Ultra-refrigerated warehouses have long been a major operational barrier, especially for health workers trying to get vaccines to remote areas where Ebola outbreaks are common. Specially designed shipping containers have been developed that can maintain cryogenic temperatures for several days, but long-term storage requires expensive specialized freezers, and back-up generators are needed in areas with unreliable power supplies.

Dr. Hatchett said that if vaccines could be stored at more standard refrigeration temperatures, transportation would be much easier and faster (and cheaper), require less energy, and eliminate the possibility of vaccine waste due to spoilage. This allows for more decentralized storage of vaccine supplies and could help healthcare workers accelerate vaccination campaigns.

“We believe the new product will be stable for several months at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, making it much easier to introduce it in outbreak settings,” Dr. Hatchett said.

Affordability remains a hurdle to sustainable supply.

Dr Hatchett said improved manufacturing approaches would significantly increase efficiency and reduce costs. He said the updated process “has higher yields than the current process, which means more doses per batch and lower cost per dose.” He added that improving the thermostability of vaccines would also reduce expenses by lowering “the cost of storing vaccines and the cost of transporting them to endemic areas.”

Dr. Hatchett said MSD is exploring options to make the latest vaccines available to public sector purchasers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) at “substantially more affordable prices than current vaccines,” which could enable larger stockpiles, increase vaccine availability, and make it more routinely available to front-line workers in areas at risk of Ebola outbreaks. Ebola virus infection can spread rapidly in clinical settings, so vaccinating more front-line workers will protect more health care workers and bring the outbreak under control more quickly without further spread among health care workers, he said.

African governments have long called for greater vaccine self-sufficiency after experiencing repeated supply shocks during past emergencies.

Dr. Hatchett said the new partnership is a direct response to calls from African governments for greater vaccine independence following years of supply shocks during health emergencies. He said the collaboration between Hillman Institute and MSD is focused on making supplies more affordable, resilient and scalable so production can be scaled up quickly in the event of an outbreak.

“To put this in perspective, Ebola is disproportionately impacting some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities,” he said. He added that the availability of vaccines in larger quantities at more affordable prices offers a huge opportunity to protect these people, support stockpiles, and prevent outbreaks whose economic costs could quickly reach millions or billions of dollars.

He said CEPI is also investing in important late-stage research on the continent.

Dr. Hatchett said that as part of this program of work, CEPI is also funding a Phase III immune bridging study in African countries (where the current vaccine is approved for use) to compare the immune response generated by the updated vaccine to that generated by the currently licensed vaccine and demonstrate that they are equivalent products. According to Dr. Hatchett, conducting late-stage clinical studies in Africa will increase the experience of African partners in conducting these important studies.

“This has the added benefit of giving the clinicians and teams involved the skills, tools and infrastructure to set up trials in the event of an outbreak, whether for Ebola or otherwise, and to test promising vaccine designs as quickly as possible,” he said.

Looking ahead, Dr. Hatchett said that whether in Africa or anywhere in the world an emerging virus could strike, better preparedness means stopping outbreaks before they are detected close to their source and before they can jump national borders and become local epidemics or pandemics.

he has this vision 100 days missionThis is an ambitious goal to develop a vaccine against a potentially pandemic virus in just 100 days, led by CEPI and now supported by the G7, G20 and countries around the world. He said the sooner a safe and effective vaccine is developed and introduced, the sooner the looming pandemic can be contained and controlled. He pointed to modeling studies that estimate that a COVID-19 vaccine developed within 100 days could “save more than 8 million lives” and prevent trillions of dollars in economic damage.

Dr Hatchett said CEPI had “just launched an ambitious new program known as the 100-day mission” to make the 100-day mission a reality. CEPI 3.0strengthen global disease defenses and help reduce the likelihood, impact, and cost of future epidemics and pandemics. Through focused investments in interconnected priority areas, CEPI 3.0 will advance vaccines against known and emerging viral threats, strengthen platform technologies available to accelerate vaccine development, and support a global network ready to respond quickly and equitably to future threats wherever and whenever they emerge.

These investments will improve preparedness for today’s threats while also preparing for tomorrow’s viruses, he said.

But Dr. Hatchett said scientific advances alone are not enough.

“Achieving this will require sustained political attention, scientific collaboration and innovation, and global funding. Regarding the latter, CEPI is currently seeking an additional USD 2.5 billion to make CEPI 3.0 a reality, and we are calling on governments, philanthropy, and all partners around the world to join our mission,” he said.