Yellow fever prophylaxis when vaccination is not an option

Yellow fever is caused by the yellow fever virus, which is endemic in Africa and South America. The disease can be deadly and there is no treatment available. A vaccine exists which gives lifelong protection, but during an outbreak the vaccine stockpile is often insufficient, due to the complex production process. Meanwhile, due to climate change, there is an increasing risk of the expansion of yellow fever virus to Europe. For travellers to endemic countries vaccination is often mandatory, but contraindicated for those who are immunocompromised and used restrictively in persons older than 60, as the yellow fever vaccine is a live attenuated viral vaccine with the potential of causing a severe infection that mimics yellow fever. Recently a medicine that is used to treat hepatitis C infection (sofosbuvir) has shown to cure mice with yellow fever. Approach/working method We will investigate the efficacy of sofosbuvir in a human infection model as prophylaxis against yellow fever in 30 healthy participants.