Development of two multivalent Rift Valley Fever vaccines for improved uptake in cattle and in small ruminants

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a viral disease of livestock and humans. It is endemic in large parts of Africa, and outbreaks have been declared over the past two years in many West African countries. An effective way to establish solid herd immunity is through regular vaccination, but this is not widely practiced due to long inter-epidemic periods when there is no visible disease.

This project offers an opportunity for combining the RVF vaccine with commonly and regularly used vaccines such as sheep and goat pox (SGP), peste des petits ruminants (PPR), or lumpy skin disease (LSD) to build the necessary RVF herd immunity against infection during new epidemics. MCI Santé Morocco has successfully developed and commercialized an SGP/PPR vaccine. Building on this expertise, MCI proposes to develop a bivalent (two sets of similar chromosomes bound together) RVF/LSD vaccine for cattle, and a trivalent SGP/PPR/RVF vaccine for sheep and goats. The latter combination, if successful, could be useful in the current global PPR eradication campaign. The four viral antigens to be used are owned by MCI and are already commercialized as monovalent or bivalent vaccines in some African countries.

The objective of this project is to make new combination vaccines available that will encourage the use of RVF vaccine by smallholders. This will consequently induce herd immunity against RVF in endemic regions through vaccination with commonly used vaccines.

This project is funded through the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund, a partnership between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, and IDRC. LVIF represents a joint investment of CA$57 million over five years to support the development, production, and commercialization of innovative vaccines against priority livestock diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.