The trial will examine immune responses to a vaccine for the serious virus which is rapidly spreading across Africa.
University College Dublin (UCD) is leading an international consortium to examine immune responses to a vaccine against the life-threatening mpox virus, an ongoing worldwide outbreak of which is having particular effect in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and surrounding countries.
MpoxVax AFRIVAC is a €1.3m, 30-month consortium funded by the European Commission, which brings together leading experts from Ireland, the UK, the DRC, Tanzania and Uganda to address the accelerating mpox epidemic that has already claimed the lives of more than 600 people in the DRC just this year.
There is an mpoxVax trial currently running in Ireland, funded by the Health Research Board, which is examining the immune response to the mpox vaccine MVA-BN – the first vaccine against mpox to be added to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pre-qualification list.
Led by Prof Eoin Feeney, the mpoxVax trial is opening five sites in Ireland – St James’ Hospital, Galway University Hospital, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Cork University Hospital and Beaumont Hospital – coordinated through the Infectious Diseases Clinical Trials Network Ireland.
As part of this trial, the team has developed a new assay to measure immune responses to the mpox vaccine. “The mpoxVax AFRIVAC project will enable us to transfer this novel technology to improve clinical research infrastructure and the conduct of vaccine trials in affected areas in Africa,” explained Prof Patrick Mallon, director of the UCD Centre for Experimental Pathogen Host Research, who is the lead coordinator of the consortium.
“The mpoxVax trial will directly contribute to international research that translates to enhanced responses to global health threats, building on learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic.”
While mpox isn’t a new disease, having been known to exist since the 1970s, the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern this August after a new strain of the virus emerged along with a rapidly increasing number of cases in the DRC and surrounding countries.
More than 20,000 people have contracted mpox in the DRC just this year, with cases reported in 13 countries across Africa.
Prof Bruce Kirenga, the scientific coordinator of the new consortium, described the trial as “uniquely important” because it will study immune responses for a vaccine “already earmarked for epidemic control in affected countries”.
“There are many reasons why immune responses could differ ranging from genetics to different immune priming from many infections endemic in Africa,” said Kirenga, who is chair of the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Epidemic Research based at Makerere University Lung Institute in Kampala, Uganda.
“This trial will provide this data that could help refine how the vaccine is used.”
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