Ibukun Oguntola and Oluoma Karen Omeje (Lead writers)
In West Africa, Lassa fever remains a persistent and recurring health threat, causing hundreds of lives each year and underscoring urgent need for sustained investment in research and vaccine manufacturing capacity. In the first five months of 2025 alone, Nigeria reported over 717 confirmed cases and 138 deaths, highlighting the escalating risk and the critical importance of vaccine preparedness.
Developing any vaccine begins with addressing a well-define public health need. For Lassa fever, that means identifying the gap, understanding where and how the virus spreads, and who is most at risk. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)-funded Enable study plays a key role in these efforts, generating robust epidemiological and seroprevalence data across affected communities. These insights are essential for strengthening outbreak preparedness and directly inform future clinical trial design and site selection, ensuring that vaccine development efforts are targeted and impactful.
Data alone is not enough. The Enable study is also building critical site capacity, from strengthening cold‑chain systems to laboratory diagnostics to improved ethical review processes and data management. These investments are ensuring that West Africa is not only prepared to host Lassa vaccine trials but positioned to lead them.
Vaccine research breakthroughs — Nigerian and global momentum
A new wave of scientific progress is redefining the prospects for Lassa fever prevention. In June 2025, Nigerian virologist, Dr Simeon Agwale of Innovative Biotech announced a major breakthrough, a Lassa fever vaccine developed from a strain native to Nigeria. Licensed from Medigen USA, the vaccine achieved 100% protection in preclinical trials involving mice and non-human primates exposed to the Nigerian Lassa virus strain. This represented a critical advancement from earlier candidates based on the Sierra Leonean Josiah strain. With this progress, Nigeria is ready to begin Phase 1 clinical trials, subject to manufacturing scale-up and facility upgrades to meet Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards.
Complementing these national efforts, CEPI is supporting in several global vaccine candidates, including the IAVI-developed rVSV-based Lassa vaccine, modelled on the successful Ebola vaccine platform. Now in Phase 2a trials, the study is enrolling more than 600 participants, adults, adolescents, and children, across Nigeria, Ghana, and Liberia through the PREVAIL partnership (Partnership for Research on Vaccines and Infectious Diseases in Liberia).
These trials are assessing the vaccine’s safety and ability to generate an immune response, with results anticipated in 2025. Conducting the studies in West African sites ensures the vaccine is evaluated in the very communities most affected, while simultaneously strengthening trial infrastructure and regional capacity. Progress is also being made with the ChAdOx1 Lassa vaccine, developed by Oxford University’s Pandemic Science Institute and supported by CEPI. Using a modified adenovirus vector, the same platform as the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the candidate entered Phase 1 clinical trials in London in early 2025.
Strengthening research and training infrastructure across West Africa
Across West Africa, momentum is building to strengthen vaccine research and trial capacity, driven by regional collaboration and national leadership. The Lassa Vaccine Coalition, led by the West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO), brings together governments, researchers, and regulators to ensure vaccine development is aligned with local priorities. Countries including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have established national Lassa vaccine task forces to coordinate preparedness and accelerate readiness for clinical trial.
A growing talent pipeline is advancing these goals. The Vanderbilt-Nigeria Building Research Capacity in HIV/Non-communicable Diseases (V-BRCH) programme is training researchers in ethics and Good Clinical Practice (GCP), while the Institute of Genomics and Global Health (formerly ACEGID) delivers genomic and diagnostic training critical for Lassa research. The Nigeria Field Epidemiology Training Programme (NFETP) has produced more than 300 epidemiologists with expertise in surveillance and outbreak response. The Kano Independent Research Centre Trust (KIRCT) serves as a model clinical trial centre, equipped with advanced laboratories, biorepositories, and robust community engagement systems.
To progress, West Africa requires targeted investments in vaccinology training, trial infrastructure, and career pathways that can translate scientific talent into sustained regional leadership in vaccine development.
Closing the gap between research and manufacturing
Research alone cannot deliver accessible solutions without manufacturing capacity. While Senegal’s Institut Pasteur de Dakar leads regional human vaccine production, most West African countries, including Nigeria, rely heavily on imports for routine immunisation. Nigeria’s National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) currently produces about 120 million livestock vaccine doses annually, with plans to scale up to 850 million doses by upgrading facilities to meet GMP standards. However, human vaccine production remains limited. Persistent challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, scarce local raw materials, and high production costs have kept Nigerian facilities off the list of manufacturers progressing toward WHO prequalification for human vaccines.
Bridging these gaps demands a multi‑pronged approach: sustained investment in training, expansion of clinical trial networks, and a regulatory framework that enable innovation. With scientific breakthroughs on the horizon, Nigeria and its neighbours have an opportunity to transition from being passive vaccine recipients to active producers, building a self‑reliant pathway to controlling Lassa fever and other endemic threats.
Existing Country Efforts in Strengthening Research and Clinical Trial Capacity in Nigeria
In September 2023, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, launched the Lassa Vaccine Task Force, bringing together two lead government agencies, the Nigeria Centre for Diseaase Control (NCDC) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), under a single national strategy. The Task Force coordinates a unified national response, ensuring Nigeria’s priorities are embedded in global eaefforts to develop and advance Lassa fever vaccine candidates.
Alongside this, the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) is focusing on three priorities, investment mobilisation, local manufacturing and supply-chain resilience, to reduce import dependency and shorten lead times for essential medical products. However, despite infrastructure expansion, a critical shortage of skilled researchers risks slowing progress.
Traditional fellowships that send researchers abroad have built individual expertise but have seldom translated into sustainable, home-grown R&D ecosystems. Outdated postgraduate curricula provide limited training in vaccinology and trial methodology, while returning fellows often confront under-resourced centres of excellence with limited grant support. Few structured mentorship programmes or career-pathway structures exist to retain top talent.
Building resilient clinical-trial capacity remains an essential, but often underestimated priority. CEPI has invested significantly into pan-African trial networks, recognising that achieving global goals, like the “100 Days Mission” requires not only strong vaccine candidate pipelines but also fully operational, high-quality study platforms in affected communities. For Nigeria, strengthening these networks means enabling scientists to design, oversee, and deliver trials end-to-end within the country, accelerating both national and global epidemic response.
Strategic actions
Lessons from regional and national initiatives illustrate what is possible when infrastructure and talent align. Ready‑to‑deploy trial platforms can significantly reduce development timelines, while partnerships that connect local scientists with international experts help build a workforce capable of independent innovation. To secure Nigeria’s position as a leader in Lassa fever vaccine development, bold and coordinated action is needed.
A. Overhaul postgraduate programmes, shifting from broad theoretical training to specialised, industry‑aligned tracks in vaccinology, drug development, and clinical research that draw on up-to-date curricula and specialised opportunities such as the Advanced Course in Vaccinology (ADVAC), ensuring knowledge is applied and sustained locally.
B. Establish and adequately fund new research centres anchored in national priorities, linked to both local industry and global networks.
C. Sustain investment in clinical trial infrastructure so studies can launch rapidlly and meet the highest standards.
Collaboration must become the norm: universities, biotech startups, government agencies, and international organisations working together to build a seamless pipeline from idea to impact.