The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the University of Oxford today announced the launch of a new project to initiate early development of prototype vaccines against the Junín virus, selected as an exemplar of the Arenavirus family which is responsible for multiple deadly hemorrhagic fevers with epidemic and pandemic potential. The data and materials generated by this project could give the world a head start in rapidly developing safe and effective vaccines against Arenaviruses within 100 days of their identification, potentially stopping a future pandemic in its tracks.
CEPI will provide up to $25 million to Oxford for preclinical and Phase I clinical development of a vaccine against the Junín virus using Oxford’s ChAdOx platform – the basis for Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine, which saved 6.3 million lives in the first year of the global vaccine rollout – and other rapid response platforms. Endemic to the Pampas of South America, a large region of over a million square kilometers which includes Buenos Aires, Junín virus can cause Argentine Haemmorhagic Fever, with symptoms including muscular pain, dizziness, rashes, and a 15-30% case fatality.
Junín virus: an exemplar Arenavirus
The Oxford team was able to develop a COVID-19 vaccine with unprecedented speed, in part because of their prior work to develop a vaccine against MERS which is a closely related virus from the coronavirus family. This gave the team a significant head start when COVID-19 emerged because they had solved many of the critical vaccinology problems for coronaviruses in advance.