EBODAC

When IMI’s EBODAC project started in late 2014, Ebola had already killed over 8 000 people in just a few short months, most of them in the western African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. With the outbreak continuing to devastate lives across the region, fear and anxiety were rife, and rumours spread rapidly through local communities.### It was against this backdrop that IMI’s EBODAC project set out to develop a community engagement strategy to enable a clinical trial of a promising new Ebola vaccine candidate. Thanks to the many innovative methods employed, including radio and drama shows, the project is now celebrating its first big success: all of the adults in the trial have been successfully vaccinated. ‘The success of the project wouldn’t have been possible without the public-private partnership nature and the support of IMI,’ said Heidi Larson of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the EBODAC project coordinator. ‘Given the sensitive nature of our trust-building, community engagement, communication and rumour management, it was particularly important that the funding for that dimension of the trial was coming from the public sector rather than the industry. At the same time, the private sector partnership was crucial to the collaboration and the success.’

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IMI’s EBODAC project is developing strategies and tools to promote the acceptance and uptake of new Ebola vaccines in local communities in Africa. In this context, the EBODAC consortium is organizing a symposium entitled ‘Community engagement, communications and enabling technology in Ebola clinical trials’.  ###The symposium will take place on 20-21 February in Dakar, Senegal. It will gather experts from around the world to discuss communications, community engagement strategies, and technologies used in clinical trials during the Ebola outbreak. Moreover, the event will offer an opportunity to exchange lessons learned, develop recommendations for future trials occurring in outbreak settings and gather insights to develop an open source online training tool focusing on community engagement. Prominent speakers will include Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, and Dr Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Senegal’s Minister of Health. The event is by invitation only. If you are interested in attending please contact Valérie Heywood: valerie.heywood@lshtm.ac.uk. 

A clinical trial of an investigational Ebola vaccine regimen is now underway in Kambia, Sierra Leone thanks to the IMI projects EBOVAC1, EBODAC and EBOMAN. ###

Even in the short term, the benefits to the local community of the ‘EBOVAC-Salone’ trial are immense; new facilities had to be built to run the study, including the first emergency room at the local district hospital, and a vaccine storage facility. In addition, the project provides both jobs and training for local healthcare workers, who will also gain valuable experience by working on the trial. In the longer term, the community may also benefit if the vaccine regimen is approved.

Sierra Leone was at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak, with 14 000 cases and 4 000 deaths, including many healthcare workers.  The vaccine regimen under investigation is a ‘prime-boost’ regimen, in which two doses are given several weeks apart. The first dose ‘primes’ the immune system, while the second ‘boost’ reinforces its effects with the goal of potentially strengthening and optimising the duration of the immunity. The study is notable in that it will evaluate the vaccine regimen’s safety and immune response within the general population of Sierra Leone, including vulnerable groups such as adolescents and children. The vaccine regimen is also in trials in other parts of Africa, Europe and the US.

The EBOVAC-Salone trial is working closely with the IMI project EBODAC, which aims to ensure the prime-boost vaccine regimen is well accepted and successfully deployed. It is doing this by informing local engagement strategies, designing graphical communication aids, deploying technological solutions to increase compliance and uniquely identifying trial participants.