Ebola Virus: Promising Vaccine Candidates
Ebola virus disease is among the most virulent viral infections caused by the Ebola
virus, with mortality rates nearing 90%. Ebola virus is a member of the Filoviridae family,
and is classified into five species, Zaire Ebolavirus, Sudan Ebolavirus ,
Bundibugyo Ebolavirus, Cote d’Ivoire Ebolavirus and Reston Ebolavirus
in decreasing order of virulence.
Ebola virus particularly, SEBOV and ZEBOV were discovered in 1976 in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then the virus has initiated over 20 sporadic outbreaks
restricted to regions of Africa.
Consequently, in 2014, the World Health Organization
declared an urgent need for efficacy and safety testing of EVD vaccine candidates.
The devastating effects of the 2014 EVD outbreak spurred international research
into vaccine development. Although, it has been 40 years since the discovery of Ebola virus,
there are no approved vaccines for the disease.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for an Ebola vaccine which is cheap,
effective and safe, which can be administered in a single dose.
The aim of this review is to discuss the most promising candidate vaccines
which could potentially protect against the Ebola virus.
Ebola virus genome is the prime target for potential candidate
vaccines. Ebola virus is a single-stranded, lipid enveloped,
negative sense RNA virus of approximately 19 kb, which
comprises of genes that code for seven proteins.
Four of the genes encode structural proteins including nucleoprotein,
glycoprotein and two viral matrix proteins VP24 and
VP40. Whereas, VP30, VP35 and the RNA-dependent viral
polymerase are the non-structural proteins.
Each gene encodes functional proteins for viral replication.
Vaccin Res Open J. 2017; 2(1): 1-6. doi: 10.17140/VROJ-2-106
