Clinical research has been accelerated since the export of Lassa cases to Germany and Sweden in 2016 and the outbreaks declared in Republic of Benin (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018), and with recurrent outbreaks Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia; as well as the 2018 epidemic in Nigeria which affected 21 States with a total of 1878 suspected cases, of which 420 were confirmed positive. At the same time, the lessons learned during the West African Ebola outbreak, when the global community was unable to deploy vaccines until the epidemic was in its tail despite having had a number of vaccine candidates in the pipeline, galvanized the global health community. The WHO has developed a research and development roadmap for Lassa fever. CEPI, a global partnership which aims to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, recently began preparation of clinical trial sites for Lassa fever in different West African Countries.
