Bundibugyo Ebola Explained: Why Existing Vaccines Don't Work and What Comes Next
An outbreak of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has highlighted a lack of approved vaccines or therapeutics for this specific strain. Researchers are currently evaluating three promising candidates, including monoclonal antibodies, to address the limitations of existing treatments designed for the Zaire strain.
Why it matters
The emergence of specific Ebola strains that evade current medical countermeasures underscores the need for broader, pan-ebolavirus treatment research.
A particular silence settles over a treatment team when the staff learns the strain of Ebola, they are treating has no approved vaccine or treatment. This Ebola outbreak announced itself in early May. A hospital in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) identified a cluster of severe illness among its own staff. 1 It wasn’t until the middle of May that the specific strain was identified as the Bundibugyo virus, the cause of Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD).
There is no licensed vaccine approved to prevent it. There is no licensed therapeutic approved to treat it.1 When the World Health Organization (WHO) convened its Research and Development Blueprint technical advisory groups at the end of May, the task was to review every candidate therapeutic and vaccine that might work. The experts came back with a short list of candidates worth evaluating in clinical field trials.2
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in