Phase I Study of a MVA based vaccine for Crimean Congo Heamoraghic fever

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is a deadly human pathogen and is of the utmost seriousness of being both fast acting and highly lethal. The virus has repeatedly caused sporadic outbreaks with a fatality rate of up to 80% and is commonly known as the Asian Ebola. CCHFV is transmitted most commonly by ticks and contact with infected livestock in addition to human-to-human transmission. The incidence of human CCHF cases closely matches the geographical range of permissive ticks. The virus causes outbreaks in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. Ticks that are able to transmit this deadly disease are encroaching into northern Europe infecting grazing livestock which is the CCHFV reservoir and an important part of the tick life cycle. Unfortunately there are no available vaccines or therapeutics to this disease. Public Health England scientists have extensive experience of working with this pathogen and developed an experimental CCHF vaccine called MVA-GP. This was produced by engineering a safe vaccine virus (MVA) to produce a key component of the CCHFV. In 2013, PHE published the results of successful trials that showed their experimental vaccine to be 100% effective at protecting animals against challenge with CCHFV. PHE has received funding from the UK Govt to develop the vaccine for animal use to enable widespread protection of farm animals which is a major source of infection to humans. PHE are now applying for funding to prepare clinical grade MVA-GP vaccine so they can perform a small clinical study to demonstrate the vaccine is safe and has the potential of protecting humans against this deadly disease.