Matthijs Raadsen

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus is the second highly pathogenic human coronavirus known to date. Since the first human case was identified in 2012, it has caused over 2450 laboratory-confirmed infections, with clinical features ranging from severe pulmonary- and extrapulmonary disease, to mild or asymptomatic cases, with an overall case-fatality rate of ~35 %. MERS has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an emerging infectious disease requiring urgent research and development efforts for preventative and therapeutic measures. Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) is a vaccinia virus strain that can be made to express exogenous genetic sequences in humans, including viral antigens, thus providing a platform for vaccine development. Due to its abortive replication in mammalian cells, MVA has an excellent safety profile in humans. MVA-MERS-S is an MVA vectored vaccine candidate encoding the full MERS coronavirus spike protein. It is currently being investigated in clinical trials conducted in Hamburg and in our institution in the near future. Early data from a single center phase Ia trial show good tolerability and the induction of both humoral and cellular immune responses in healthy volunteers after 2 injections of MVA-MERS-S. Future trials will seek to verify these results in a broader population, both in Europe and in MERS endemic regions.