On Jul. 15, 2024, the Sabin Vaccine Institute launched a Phase 2 clinical trial for its vaccine against Sudan ebolavirus, with healthy volunteers receiving the single-dose vaccine at Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) in Uganda. To date, there are currently no approved vaccines for this strain of ebolavirus, which saw an outbreak end just last year. Ebolavirus disease kills on average half the people infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Sudan ebolavirus is a filovirus, in the same family as Marburg virus disease and Zaire ebolavirus, which killed 11,325 in one outbreak in West Africa from 2014-16. Ebolavirus disease spreads between people via direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected people and is highly virulent, causing hemorrhagic fever.

Based on the same cAd3 platform as its Marburg vaccine candidate, Sabin’s single-dose investigational Sudan ebolavirus vaccine was found to be promising in Phase 1 clinical and non-clinical studies, with results showing it to be safe, while eliciting rapid and robust immune responses that lasted up to 12 months.