Follow the money: Why is a new Ebola vaccine taking so long to develop?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

I'm frightened, Ebola is killing many people.

Look at how we are living, 10, 15 people in one room, children, grandchildren, we've been suffering since we got displaced. I wish we could go back to our farms.

SPEAKER_2 (0:19)

I didn't know if I would make it, because this disease is ravaging the world. There are many lives lost, people who don't manage to pull through.

I was mentally stressed and I didn't know how I would get out of the hospital.

Leanna Byrne (0:33)

People in the Democratic Republic of Congo there were Ebola has now claimed more than 3,400 lives, more than 7,000 confirmed cases.

SPEAKER_4 (0:42)

We were scared about the talk of the Ebola virus in Goma again, especially as this isn't the first time. Last time, it took a heavy toll on many people, separating us from our friends and family.

Leanna Byrne (0:54)

It's the country's worst ever outbreak, which was first identified in May of this year and has spread rapidly across six Northeastern provinces.

SPEAKER_5 (1:03)

A few weeks ago, there was one new case in the province of Owali. Today, there are more than 150 cases that have been reported there. All of the organizations are so stretched.

Leanna Byrne (1:14)

The outbreak is being caused by Bundy Bugio virus, and no approved vaccine nor specific treatment exists for this strain of the disease. But developing a vaccine is not only a scientific challenge, but someone has to pay. On Today's Business Daily, we will follow the money to look at how a vaccine can get off the ground and why it is taking so long for a new Ebola jab to get there.

It's complex because Ebola isn't a single virus. There are different strains or versions and a vaccine developed for one will not necessarily protect against another. The licensed Ebola vaccines currently available were developed mainly to protect against the Zahir strain. The best known one is MSD's Ervibo, which is a single dose vaccine.

Emry Makomano is a BBC reporter in the DRC, who has been reporting on the latest outbreak.

Emry Makumeno (2:07)

When you look at the number of people dying more than 3,000 in just under four months, that's very significant. The WHO shares that this is one of the fastest growing and spreading Ebola, and it has already surpassed the previous deadliest outbreak in the country, and so it is infecting even the responders involved in the response. So what we have seen is that the 160 people, I mean, frontline health workers, have contracted the disease and at least 40 died. So any approved vaccine or specific therapeutics to treat will be very welcome to try to contain this buddhubungo type of Ebola.

Leanna Byrne (2:52)

Do we know why it's spreading so fast?

Emry Makumeno (2:54)

Well, one of the reasons is distrust.

It's also late detection. The experts here are telling us that before it was identified, this buddhubungo variant of Ebola might have been circulating four months before. The teams and the response in general are still trying to catch up with the outbreak that has been spreading quite before the response.

Leanna Byrne (3:19)

Emry Makumeno there. According to the Center for Global Development, a think tank which works to reduce poverty, the rule of thumb for developing a new vaccine is a cost of around $1 billion.

But that development has accelerated when there is commercial incentive to get a vaccine over the line. For Ebola, that hasn't been there so far. Vaccines for the disease would be stockpiled ready for outbreaks rather than the more lucrative model of routine mass vaccination. Rachel Glanister is the president for the Center of Global Development. She explains what's needed to get vaccine development off the ground.

Rachel Glanister (3:55)

Push funding is what we normally do and it's paying for inputs or what we normally do when we fund research. And it's giving a grant to someone to develop something. So you're essentially paying for the time to work on it.

Pull funding is paying for the outcome. It's saying, if you produce a vaccine, I'll buy it from you. I commit now to buy it from you.

Leanna Byrne (4:22)

Do we need both, do you think?

Rachel Glanister (4:24)

Yeah, definitely. They do different things. Push funding is useful for very early stage research, where it's quite hard to define what the output is that you want. You know, you want people to go and study and investigate and learn how a virus works. But pull funding is very good for getting people to focus on, and on producing it, producing it well, producing it enough quantity and at a good price. You probably need a combination of push and pull for Ebola. I think there are a couple of firms that we already know are kind of well advanced.