Serum Institute plans to produce Ebola shots for outbreak management in Uganda

UGANDA – The Serum Institute of India (SII) has announced that it has been driving plans to manufacture 20,000 to 30,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine by the end of November for use in trials against an outbreak in Uganda.

The Indian biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals company announced that it will supply its Ebola vaccine doses at no charge, noting that the vaccine has been in development for several years but its progress through clinical trials has been slowed by funding shortfalls.

The move follows collaborative efforts to rapidly control and contain the current Ebola disease outbreak in Uganda to protect neighboring districts as well as neighboring countries.

The country declared an outbreak of the Sudan ebolavirus on 20^th September 2022, marking the first time this species, one of the six under the Ebolavirus genus, was detected in Uganda since 2012.

“Uganda’s outbreak has been blunted by the absence of a proven vaccine against the Sudan strain of the virus,” the Serum Institute of India noted.

Subsequently, Ugandan health authorities have focused on supportive care for confirmed cases alongside stepping up testing, surveillance, infection prevention and control, as well as collaborating with communities to support disease prevention measures.

African Ministers of Health and government representatives also recently agreed on joint measures to stop the potential spread of the ongoing Ebola disease outbreak in Uganda and beyond its borders.

Meanwhile, there are at least six candidate vaccines against Sudan ebolavirus, which are in different stages of development.

Three of them have Phase1 data specifically safety and immunogenicity data in humans, and the remaining are in the preclinical evaluation phase.

For example, Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, which developed a COVID-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca (AZN.L), has an Ebola vaccine that has been shown to induce an immune response to both the Sudan and Zaire strains in Phase 1 trials.

Its developers said it could be deployed in Uganda as part of a clinical trial once the authorities there gave regulatory approval.

“We are working very closely with Serum Institute to rapidly scale up the manufacture of this vaccine,” said Teresa Lambe, the chief scientific adviser on Ebola at the Jenner Institute.

Furthermore, the Oxford researchers voiced frustration that their vaccine was not ready to be rolled out when the outbreak hit, saying governments around the world had not made investing in vaccines enough of a priority in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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