Development of a toolbox to improve preparedness strategies on surveillance in human-animal interface and countermeasures to reduce recurrent Ebola impacts

The recent outbreak of Ebola virus (EBOV), in particular the EBOV Sudan strain, is a major cause for concern as there are currently no available vaccines and treatments for this fatal disease. Moreover, surveillance measures are suboptimal and the social response to viral outbreaks hindered by limited acceptance of countermeasures. The Ebola PREP-TBOX consortium aims to make significant strides in developing essential tools and strategies for effective surveillance response, and control of Ebola outbreaks, fostering a safer and resilient future. Our objective is to build a toolbox permitting earliest Ebola outbreak containment. A spatiotemporal model utilizing environmental, animal reservoir, socioeconomic and human movement data will be developed enabling prediction of future outbreaks. The sensitivity of current diagnostics will be improved through innovative viral capture techniques. EBOV exposure and immune response will be tested from human-animal interface samples from the Republic of Congo (RoC), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. New treatments for the EBOV Sudan strain will be developed by testing for broad-spectrum activity of the EBOV anti-Zaire Equine polyclonal antibody. Further, development of mosaic antigens, composed of several filovirus strains (incl. EBOV), will create new tools for broad-spectrum vaccine and therapeutic development. Conductance of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) studies, gap analysis and targeted trainings in RoC, DRC and Uganda will improve population acceptance for future EBOV outbreak interventions. The training of African researchers by the consortium will increase local skills and competences. Ebola PREP-TBOX is an interdisciplinary and complementary consortium including partners from the Congo Basin (FCRM-RoC, INRB-RDC, UVRI-IAVI-Uganda), Prof. JJ Muyembé (Ebola discoverer 1976) and partners from Europe (Fabentech and Bacfly/CNRS-France, IMAS12-Spain) and the support of G Kobinger (GNL,US).