The Role of The African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF) in The Accelerated Clinical Evaluation of Ebola Vaccine Candidates During the Large West Africa Epidemic

Abstract

In emergency situations, clinical trials of new vaccines and therapies in resource-constrained settings place an additional burden on the limited resources of low and middle-income countries. The clinical trials of vaccines against Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Africa presented challenges on how to ensure there was enough capacity for ethics and regulatory reviews and oversight while still allowing for accelerating the clinical evaluations. Using the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF) platform WHO supported African countries to provide ethics and regulatory reviews and oversight, ensuring that these trials were completed in unprecedented shorter timelines than normal, that is, months instead of years. Pathways were defined, external expertise provided and appropriate review models implemented in the countries which hosted these critical studies. This paper discusses the work around the clinical trials, the models of reviews and timelines for clinical trials and highlights the important lessons revealed. More investments are required to monitor safety during clinical trials, strengthen systems for licensure of new products and implement robust post-marketing surveillance, among other components for effective clinical trials before the next pandemic surfaces.