Scientists make headway in vaccine development

Scientists and officials from the ministry of Health, the Science, Technology and Innovation Secretariat, and the ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries converged at Lake Victoria hotel, Entebbe on September 18, 2024 to witness the launch of a major research study that is poised to place Uganda among vaccine-making countries.

This ongoing study, whose phase one runs from January 2024 to December 2025, is titled ‘Advancing Vaccine Development: Harnessing Multiple Antigenic Epitopes for Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) in Humans and Animals’. The study is envisaged to end in Uganda not only patenting a potent vaccine against the tick-borne disease CCHF but also manufacturing the vaccine for the national and international market.

Led by scientists at the Uganda Virus Research Institute and the MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit, the two-year collaborative study involves remarkable national and international scientists. Implementing partners include Kenya Institute of Primate Research, Rocky Mountain Laboratories (of USA), Makerere University and California National Primate Research Centre.

Crimean-Congo Haemorrhage Fever (CCHF), a zoonotic viral illness affecting animals and humans in Europe, Africa and Middle East, is a common disease that breaks out periodically in Uganda, especially in the cattle corridor. It is transmitted by bites from infected ticks or by direct contact with blood or tissues of infected ticks, viraemic patients or viraemic livestock, and it has a mortality rate of 11 per cent.

Globally, there is no available vaccine or drug to treat CCHF in animals or human beings. Prof Pontiano Kaleebu, the director of Uganda Virus Research Institute and co-principal investigator, said the research is part of the local capacity that Uganda resolved to build and support during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Brenda Nakazibwe, the team leader, Pathogen Economy, at the Science, Technology and Innovation Secretariat (STI/OP), supplemented this by reporting that in the short time since 2020, STI/OP has come out with three human candidate vaccines for Covid-19, funded three animal candidate vaccines that are now entering the animal clinical trials, on top of training 12 protégés in modeling, among other encouraging exploits. STI/ OP has also set up a target for Uganda to train 10,000 vaccine scientists by 2040.

RESEARCH AS EXPENSIVE BUSINESS

Kaleebu said most of the funds invested in the study are from the Government of Uganda through the STI/OP. He added that thanks to the project’s quick advancement, the positive results and high promise so far, Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, recently put in some money.

Kaleebu emphasized that the development of vaccines is a very long, delicate and expensive process. He elaborated that the need for high-grade scientists, precise equipment, uncontaminated materials and rounds of test-trials makes all health-scientific research very expensive.

He gave an example that this study’s preclinical trials will need 12 non-human primates (monkeys), each costing $35,000 (about Shs 128 million).

He said the project’s outcomes will be adequately patented and protected as intellectual property of Uganda. The vaccine will not only reduce morbidity and mortality, and prevent outbreaks but also reduce overall health care burdens and enhance preparedness for and response to emerging infectious diseases.

Sheila Balinda, a molecular virologist, is the principal investigator. She said the study aims to develop a multivalent vaccine for CCHF, using different CCHF virus genotypes circulating in Uganda. She highlighted the various methodologies and protocols meticulously followed, and the accomplishments so far.

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