A VSV-EBOV-Based Vaccine Against COVID-19

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 is characterized by fever, cough, difficulty breathing, loss of taste and smell, nausea, and sore throat. As of the fourth quarter 2020, COVID-19 is responsible for over 1.17 million deaths worldwide. As the pandemic continues to surge, the importance of a safe, affordable, and efficacious vaccine is of urgent importance. The present technology utilizes the well characterized vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) encoding the Ebola virus (VSV-EBOV) to express additionally a codon-optimized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. A single intranasal or intramuscular administration of the vaccine showed protective efficacy against COVID-19 in hamsters after 4 weeks. A single intramuscular injection showed protective efficacy against COVID-19 pneumonia in rhesus macaques within 10 days. The vaccine is inexpensive to replicate, elicits a high antigen-specific antibody titer within Start Printed Page 8214the host, and provides protective efficacy after a single dose.