The Sabin Vaccine Institute's two cAd3 filovirus vaccine candidates — one for Marburg, one for Sudan ebolavirus — are in Phase 2 clinical trials at Makerere University Walter Reed Project in Kampala, with the Sudan Phase 2 launched in July 2024 and the Marburg Phase 2 already enrolment-complete. [1][2] Neither protects against Bundibugyo ebolavirus, the strain driving the current Uganda outbreak. There is no clinical-stage Bundibugyo-specific candidate at any sponsor on Sunday, and a Phase I for any new candidate would take roughly six to twelve months to enrol.

The paper's Saturday feature on the procurement day-book walked the BARDA-Sabin-NIAID stack and noted that the Sudan ebolavirus candidate is a single-dose investigational vaccine that was safe and immunogenic for up to twelve months in Phase 1. [1] Sabin's last X post under its handle redirected followers to LinkedIn and Bluesky in late January; the institute has not used the channel to address the Bundibugyo question in the eight days the paper has been counting.

The structural read on Sunday afternoon is the gap between the two real Phase 2s and the strain that is killing people. The cAd3 platform is the same family — chimpanzee adenovirus type 3 — but each candidate is built for a specific glycoprotein and the cross-protection data does not yet exist for Bundibugyo. [3] No sponsor surfaced a Bundibugyo announcement Saturday or Sunday. The next test is whether any of the four candidates the Saturday brief catalogued moves a press line by Monday.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago