A new study, led by icddr,b and funded and supported by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), will work with some of the survivors of the highly fatal Nipah infection to understand the body’s response to the virus and support the development of much-needed Nipah vaccines.
The announcement follows last week’s Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit, co-hosted by CEPI and the UK Government, bringing together global leaders to unite behind CEPI’s plan to better prepare for future epidemic and pandemic threats.
More than 50 Nipah survivors are set to take part in the pioneering research which aims to characterise the immune responses generated against the virus in response to previous Nipah outbreaks – and to explore how immunity changes over time.
Securing this novel information could provide crucial input to guide the development of tools like diagnostic tests, treatments, and vaccines.
The study will take place in Bangladesh, where outbreaks of the deadly virus have occurred on an annual basis since the start of the twenty-first century.
Up to US$980,000 will be provided by CEPI to support the research. CEPI is already running a similar partnership with Universiti Malayato to study Nipah survivors in Malaysia.
The project with icddr,b will increase the number of survivors being studied while also documenting immunology data from survivors who may have been infected by different Nipah strains compared to those in Malaysia.
The road to a Nipah vaccine
In addition to advancing scientific understanding of the virus, the biological material donated by the survivors will be used to support the development of key research tools, like assays and antibody standards, needed for upcoming Phase II clinical trials of Nipah vaccines, currently scheduled to start in mid-to-late 2022.
CEPI’s goal, announced as part of its US$3.5 billion pandemic preparedness plan, is to advance R&D towards licensure of a Nipah vaccine.
Dr Melanie Saville, executive director of Vaccine R&D at CEPI, said: “As the ongoing COVID-19 crisis shows, those who have tested positive for potentially deadly diseases can provide tremendous information to advance our understanding of how a virus operates and how the body responds to infection. Such data is also crucial to inform the development of lifesaving tools, like vaccines.
“This new study with Bangladesh’s world-leading scientific institution icddr,b will provide a wealth of important data and material to advance the development of much-needed Nipah vaccine and potentially support their future licensure”, Dr Melanie said.
Dr Tahmeed Ahmed, executive director at icddr,b,said: “icddr,b has over five decades of experience in vaccine research and contributed to the development and licensure of many vaccines, including cholera, typhoid, rotavirus, measles, polio, pneumonia, dengue, HPV among others.
Dr Mark Bailey, chief scientific officer, UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA),said, “The collaboration with icddr,b is hugely important in obtaining source materials from Nipah survivors for the production of a WHO International Standard and other reference materials. These materials are often difficult to collect, and this is especially the case here.”
