The recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus–Zaire Ebola virus (rVSV-ZEBOV) vaccine is the only vaccine recommended for use to respond to Zaire ebolavirus outbreaks by SAGE. A single ring vaccination trial found the efficacy to be 100%; however, no estimates of real-world effectiveness have yet been published.
Epicentre conducted a retrospective test-negative case-control analysis to estimate effectiveness of rVSV-ZEBOV vaccination against Ebola virus disease (EVD) during the 2018 - 2020 epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), using data on suspected cases collected at Ebola treatment centres. Missing data were imputed using multivariate imputation.
This study is the first to estimate real-world effectiveness of rVSV-ZEBOV vaccination EVD during the second largest EVD outbreak ever recorded. Results confirm that rVSV-ZEBOV vaccination is highly protective against developing EVD and support its reactive, targeted use in at-risk people during future outbreaks.