rVSV-EBOV vaccination protects ferrets from lethal Bundibugyo virus disease

Abstract

An uncontrolled and rapidly growing outbreak of Bundibugyo virus (BDBV) is currently gripping the Democratic Republic of the Congo and threatening health security across Central Africa. There are no available BDBV-specific vaccines, although emerging evidence suggests that the Ebola virus-specific vaccine, rVSV-EBOV (also known by its tradename ERVEBO), may offer cross-protective immunity. To directly address this question, we evaluated the efficacy of rVSV-EBOV in the uniformly lethal ferret model of BDBV infection. All vaccinated animals survived BDBV challenge and exhibited minimal clinical signs of infection, presumably as a result of a moderate—but protective—humoral immune response. These findings provide critical evidence further supporting the cross-protective efficacy of rVSV-EBOV, and they suggest a potential role for this vaccine in mitigating the ongoing BDBV outbreak.