Advancing Vaccine Strategies Against Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers: Innovation and Challenges

A special issue of Vaccines (ISSN 2076-393X). This special issue belongs to the section "Vaccines Against Tropical and Other Infectious Diseases".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2026) | Viewed by 1628

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise G. Caporale, 64100 Teramo, Italy
Interests: arboviruses; hemorrhagic fever; viral diseases
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Porton Down, Salisbury, UK
Interests: henipavirus; emerging viruses; virus–host interactions; vaccine development; animal models
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers (VHFs) represent a significant global health threat, causing severe outbreaks with high morbidity and mortality rates. Infections like Ebola, Marburg, Lassa fever, Crimean-–ongo hemorrhagic fever, and Rift Valley fever remain major public health concerns worldwide, with most of them listed by WHO as priority pathogens with PHEIC potential.

Despite ongoing research efforts, effective and widely accessible vaccines remain limited for many of these diseases, and thus development of both preventive and therapeutic vaccines is a top priority for global health security in the years to come.

As Guest Editors, we are pleased to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue “Advancing Vaccine Strategies Against Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers: Innovation and Challenges” in Vaccines (MDPI).

This collection aims to collate cutting-edge research and comprehensive reviews on the latest developments in vaccine design, immunological responses, and clinical trials, as well as animal trials and real-world implementation strategies for VHFs.

To this end, this Special Issue welcomes original research articles and reviews on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Novel vaccine platforms (e.g., mRNA, viral vector, protein subunit) for VHFs;
  • Advances in antigen design and immunogenicity studies;
  • Preclinical and clinical evaluation of VHF vaccines;
  • Immune correlates of protection and long-term immunity;
  • Challenges in vaccine deployment, accessibility, and global distribution;
  • Therapeutic vaccines.

We look forward to your valuable contributions to advance this critical field of research.

Dr. Massimo Spedicato
Dr. Stuart David Dowall
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • viral hemorrhagic fevers
  • vaccines
  • Flaviviridae
  • Arenaviridae
  • Bunyaviridae
  • Filoviridae
  • Nairoviridae
  • Paramyxoviridae
  • Phenuiviridae

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

24 pages, 2115 KB  
Article
Comparison of Vaccine Platforms for Machupo Virus
by Rachel Erickson, Hiromi Muramatsu, Sachchidanand Tiwari, Sowmya Sriram, Fernanda Caroline Coirada, Norbert Pardi and Paul Bates
Vaccines 2026, 14(4), 315; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines14040315 - 31 Mar 2026
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Abstract
Background/Objectives: Pathogenic mammarenaviruses cause severe hemorrhagic and neurologic disease in humans. Machupo virus (MACV), a New World (NW) mammarenavirus, causes Bolivian hemorrhagic fever in humans, and there are no approved vaccines. Methods: Here, we describe and compare the immunogenicity of three vaccines expressing [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Pathogenic mammarenaviruses cause severe hemorrhagic and neurologic disease in humans. Machupo virus (MACV), a New World (NW) mammarenavirus, causes Bolivian hemorrhagic fever in humans, and there are no approved vaccines. Methods: Here, we describe and compare the immunogenicity of three vaccines expressing the MACV glycoprotein complex (GPC) in C57BL/6 mice: a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) and two different lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-encapsulated nucleoside-modified mRNA (mRNA-LNP) vaccines. The first mRNA-LNP vaccine, designated MACV mRNA, expresses the full-length MACV GPC. The second mRNA-LNP vaccine, called MACV VLP mRNA, encodes MACV GPC with appended sequences that induce the budding of virus-like particles (VLPs) with MACV GPC on the surface. This is the first description of any mRNA-LNP vaccine for MACV and the first comparison of mRNA and rVSVs as vaccine candidates for MACV. Results: We find that two doses of either MACV mRNA or MACV VLP mRNA are required for the induction of robust humoral and cellular immune responses including total MACV GPC IgG, neutralizing antibodies, cross-reactive antibodies that bind the related Junín virus GPC, and MACV-specific T-cell responses. To further investigate vaccination strategies for MACV, we also evaluated a heterologous prime-boost regimen involving the MACV mRNA vaccine coupled with the rVSV-based MACV vaccine. We find that the highest levels of MACV GPC-specific IgG and neutralizing titers were achieved when heterologous mRNA and rVSV prime-boost regimens were employed. Conclusions: These results elucidate differences in the immune response to different vaccine platforms for MACV and can inform future vaccine development for NW arenaviruses. Full article
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