International research consortium receives highly endowed Horizon Europe funding for the development of vaccines against Marburg viruses.
The multidisciplinary European consortium MARVAX will receive 7.4 million euros over the next four years for the research and development of vaccines against Marburg viruses. Researchers from France, Spain and Germany will develop novel vaccine candidates, which will be tested in preclinical animal models and bring them to the stage where they are ready for phase I clinical trials. The Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM, Germany) will coordinate the MARVAX consortium that also includes the Institut Pasteur (France), the National Centre for Biotechnology of the Spanish National Research Council (CNB-CSIC, Spain), and CZ Vaccines (Zendal group, Spain).
The Marburg virus is one of the most dangerous pathogens for humans. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the mortality rate ranges between 24% and 88%, depending on the strain of the virus and the quality of the medical care. Like Ebola virus, it is an RNA virus of the filovirus family.
The first cases of the Marburg virus disease were documented in 1967. Since then, there have been several outbreaks in eastern, central and southern Africa. In 2021 for the first time the virus emerged in West Africa and this year in Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea. Marburg virus disease is a zoonosis as the initial transmission usually comes from animals: the natural hosts of this virus are presumably fruit bats. Marburg virus is transmitted between humans through body fluids, possibly