IVI, KDCA, ST Pharm and Seoul National University - SFTS/Disease X

Leading scientific organisations in Korea including the Korea Disease Control Agency (KDCA), International Vaccine Institute (IVI), ST Pharm and Seoul National University (SNU), have joined forces with CEPI to advance a new AI-designed mRNA vaccine that could become the first-ever vaccine to protect against severe fever with thrombocytopaenia syndrome, or SFTS, a potentially deadly tick-borne disease affecting countries in Asia. CEPI is providing up to US $16 million to the project, led by IVI, to test the vaccine’s safety and ability to generate a suitable immune response in healthy adults in preclinical and Phase I/II clinical trials in Korea. This is the first time an SFTS vaccine candidate could be tested in people. SFTS virus has been selected for this research as a representative (or “prototype”) pathogen from the Phenuivirus family. Successfully designing a vaccine against the SFTS virus would provide a blueprint for developing vaccines against other closely related Phenuiviruses.