Global health organisation CEPI will provide around $60 million to Moderna and two other partners to speed up the development of vaccines targeting the Ebola Bundibugyo strain, which is currently driving an outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which played a key role in financing vaccine development during the COVID-19 pandemic, said it aims to accelerate early-stage testing of candidate vaccines within months, despite the absence of any approved treatment for the strain.
CEPI head Richard Hatchett said it may be possible to prepare Ebola Bundibugyo (BDBV) vaccine candidates for clinical trials within “a couple of months,” though he cautioned that development timelines remain uncertain, particularly given security constraints in eastern Congo.
“There are currently no approved BDBV vaccines or treatments,” Hatchett said, adding that the prospect of vaccines on “a not infinitely distant horizon” could help advance planning on funding and procurement.
CEPI said up to $50 million will support Moderna’s investigational BDBV vaccine candidate, including preclinical and early clinical development, as well as potential manufacturing scale-up and later-stage trials if early results are positive.
The organisation will also allocate up to $8.6 million to a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and an initial $3.2 million to a candidate developed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).
IAVI’s single-dose candidate uses a platform similar to Merck’s approved Ebola vaccine Ervebo, which targets the Zaire strain. The organisation said early animal studies have shown survival benefits, but it remains unclear who will lead clinical trials.
CEPI said earlier outbreaks, including West Africa’s 2014-2016 epidemic, demonstrated the need for rapid deployment capacity, but warned that financing and logistics remain major challenges.
Separate funding commitments have also been made by Gavi, which pledged up to $50 million for response efforts, while the World Bank’s Pandemic Fund has announced grants of up to $220.6 million.
Hatchett said ensuring equitable access will be the next major challenge once vaccines are developed, noting that hundreds of thousands of doses were required to control previous Ebola outbreaks in the region.
The announcements come as health agencies continue to respond to the Ebola outbreak in Congo, which has so far recorded 282 confirmed cases and 42 deaths, alongside around 1,100 suspected cases under investigation, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Nine additional cases have also been confirmed in Uganda, including one death, raising concerns about cross-border transmission.
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As the Ukraine war is highlighted by some leaders during the United Nations' 81st General Assembly meeting in New York, Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday with ballistic missiles, killing two people and injuring six, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained low on Thursday, as Iran reiterated that it will neither enter into new negotiations with the United States nor re-open the Strait as long as its conditions are not met, despite recent indirect talks in New York mediated by Qatar.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York on Wednesday, as Washington pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine and Kyiv and Moscow continue to strike energy infrastructure.
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The 81st UN General Assembly has wrapped up its third day in New York on Thursday, with world leaders delivering high-level speeches and holding diplomatic meetings.
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Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 17 September 2026. These are the top five stories making headlines in the field of health.
Doctors in St. Louis have successfully separated Ethiopian two-year-old twin girls who were born joined at the head after a months-long series of complex operations culminating in a nearly 25-hour final procedure, doctors said on Wednesday.
Tobacco use may significantly reduce fertility in both men and women, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) publication that highlights growing evidence linking smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke with reproductive health problems.
A record-breaking heatwave that swept across western Europe in late June has been linked to more than 10,000 excess deaths, according to newly released mortality data, highlighting the growing human toll of extreme temperatures across the continent.
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