CEPI expands Lassa fever study to four more West African countries - Homeland Preparedness News

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What is already the largest ever Lassa fever assessment study will expand to reach Benin, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, thanks to an additional $10.3 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI).

"There have been a number of positive developments in the Lassa vaccine space over the past couple of years, with multiple candidates now moving into in-human testing," Melanie Saville, director of Vaccine Research and Development at CEPI, said. "To continue this momentum and to meet CEPI's goal to get a licensed Lassa vaccine for routine immunisation, we must therefore now advance our disease-assessment efforts to provide the critical data for future late-stage Lassa vaccine clinical trials. The results produced by the Enable research programme will be vital in contributing to this endeavour, while also providing novel information to help support healthcare workers and researchers in the region working on this potentially deadly threat."

The Enable study, created and funded by CEPI, will enroll up to 23,000 participants, including 7,000 already enrolled from Nigeria since December 2020. It operates through in-country partners, now including the Fondation pour la Recherche Scientifique (FORS) in Benin, Phebe Hospital in partnership with the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) in Liberia and supported by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone (KGH) in cooperation with Tulane University, and Université Gamal Nasser de Conakry (UGANC) in Guinea, in partnership with Robert Koch Institut (RKI).

Lassa was first identified in 1969 and is listed as an emerging infectious disease by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, knowledge of it is limited due to a lack of formal and standard clinical diagnoses of it and varying severity in symptoms produced. Most patients who become infected are thought to be asymptomatic and therefore fail to seek diagnosis. While it's estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 cases occur each year, due to its tendency to appear in remote regions and the previous considerations, CEPI has argued that the true case count is likely much higher.

Enter Enable, which seeks to provide a greater understanding of the rate, location, and spread of Lassa fever across West Africa. It will chronicle data linked to the different ages and genders infected and the proportion of asymptomatic and symptomatic cases. CEPI hopes that data provided by the study could help define an appropriate vaccination strategy, particularly in terms of location of deployment, once a vaccine is approved for use.

"The Enable Lassa programme is building on collaboration among countries in West Africa most affected by Lassa fever to generate data and evidence that we urgently need for vaccine R&D," Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director-General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, said. "We are excited about the prospects of the project, not only in generating data for vaccine development but also in strengthening our knowledge of the epidemiology of this disease and improving on the much-needed interventions for disease control."

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