A Rift Valley Fever Vaccine for Use in Humans and Animals

George Warimwe of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom will develop a vaccine to protect a variety of species, including humans, sheep and cattle, against Rift Valley fever, which can cause serious illness. Current vaccines that are in development have safety concerns for use in humans. They have developed a Rift Valley fever vaccine using a replication-deficient simian adenovirus as a safe vector that is easy and inexpensive to manufacture, and have tested its safety and immunogenicity in mice, and begun field-testing in sheep in Kenya. They will test safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine and the effect of an adjuvant in calves and goats, and compare this with the data from mice and sheep.