New Delhi, Sept. 11 -- CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) CEO, Richard Hatchett, is in India for CEPI's board meeting, its first in the country. In an exclusive interaction with HT, Hatchett spoke about the chances of getting a vaccine ready for field trials for the Bundibugyo virus in next four to six weeks, with India contributing significantly in manufacturing of one of the front-runners. Edited excerpts: We are having the first meeting of our board in India. We planned to have a board meeting in India in 2020, but then Covid happened. India was one of our original funder countries. Did the scale of Bundibugyo virus outbreak originating from The DRC catch you unawares? This outbreak, unfortunately, has spread dramatically. Africa CDC has said that the area where the current outbreak is occurring is about the size of United Kingdom. Our experience with Ebola over the past decade has demonstrated that it is actually a family of viruses that have the potential to have a large, explosive outbreaks. I think, before the west African outbreak of 2013-2016, people didn't realise that Ebola had that potential. Then it found its way into an environment that wasn't picked up immediately and spread into large population centres particularly where public health systems are weak, and has the potential to explode. The reason why the outbreaks are difficult to control is because the environment in eastern DRC is very unstable- there're lots of armed militia groups, making it difficult to move around and track and trace contacts of known cases, and limited trust in government authorities. And the surprising thing about this outbreak is the virus, Bundibugyo, which was known to have caused only two outbreaks previously. People knew it was circulating in the area but they didn't appreciate that it had the explosive potential that it had.We don't have a vaccine yet. CEPI's core competency as an organization is supporting research and development of vaccine. There are some therapeutics that are being evaluated- monoclonal antibodies, and small molecule therapeutics, remdesivir and obeldesivir. We are providing some monitory support for the evaluation of the therapeutics, but our main investments are in supporting the development of the matched vaccines against this specific Bundibugyo Ebola Virus. We have some evidence to suggest that the existing licensed vaccine may provide some cross-protection. It may reduce mortality. CEPI is supporting five different candidates that actually represent four different approaches. In fact, India has a stake in the vaccine that's likely to be the first vaccine to be evaluated in DRC- the Oxford vaccine that's being manufactured in Serum Institute of India. Serum's ability to receive the starting materials, and scale up the production very quickly is best in the world. Moderna is developing an mRNA vaccine and are probably just a couple of weeks behind the Oxford candidate. Then we have got two candidates that we are developing- one with the International AIDS Vaccine Institute and the other with Public Health Vaccines- that actually use the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus platform, and that's the same platform that's the basis of Merck's licensed Ebola vaccine. The advantage is that it's known to be safe, well-tolerated, immunizes with the single dose, and provides protection very quickly within about seven days. In an outbreak setting those characteristics are very important. The challenge, however, is that it's a tricky technology to work with- almost everybody who has worked with it has encountered stumbles or it takes time to develop. The last candidate is developed by an Egyptian company, Minapharm, which is using the same technology that's the basis of the current mpox vaccine that's well-established. We are hoping that the Oxford and Moderna vaccines will be ready for field evaluation- testing in DRC- in the next four to six weeks. Once those trials start, depending on how we operate in that environment, part of the challenge will be to see how quickly we can accumulate people who have been exposed to cases of Ebola as that would be the population we'd be targeting. It's possible that we could get a result, at least an initial indication, in a couple of months. But that's if everything goes as planned. We hope, by the end of the year we know whether these vaccines work or not. India has tremendous vaccine development and production capability. The country has been one of the global leaders in thinking about pandemic preparedness and response. It has tremendous production capacity and increasingly strong development capability. India has the tremendous opportunity to contribute to general pandemic preparedness and response....