Vaccine innovation spurred by the long wait for an Ebola virus vaccine

Abstract

The 2013–16 Ebola virus outbreak—the largest ever recorded—substantially hastened the development of an Ebola virus vaccine. Before this outbreak, the safety and immunogenicity of only two Ebola virus vaccine candidates (a DNA-based vaccine and a recombinant adenovirus [rAd] serotype 5-based vaccine) had been evaluated in phase 1 clinical trials. Since then, clinical trials, including phase 2 and 3 trials, have been done to evaluate the safety, immunogenicity, and, when possible, the efficacy of several additional Ebola virus vaccine regimens.