Abstract
For more than 30 years the filoviruses, Marburg virus and Ebola virus, have been associated with periodic outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever that produce severe and often fatal disease. The filoviruses are endemic primarily in resourceโpoor regions in Central Africa and are also potential agents of bioterrorism. Although no vaccines or antiviral drugs for Marburg or Ebola are currently available, remarkable progress has been made over the last decade in developing candidate preventive vaccines against filoviruses in nonhuman primate models. Due to the generally remote locations of filovirus outbreaks, a singleโinjection vaccine is desirable. Among the prospective vaccines that have shown efficacy in nonhuman primate models of filoviral hemorrhagic fever, two candidates, one based on a replicationโdefective adenovirus serotype 5 and the other on a recombinant VSV (rVSV), were shown to provide complete protection to nonhuman primates when administered as a single injection. The rVSVโbased vaccine has also shown utility when administered for postexposure prophylaxis against filovirus infections. A VSVโbased Ebola vaccine was recently used to manage a potential laboratory exposure. Copyright ยฉ 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.