The UK government has announced £33.2 million to fund eight vaccine projects against some of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. The awards, announced October 8, 2026 by the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Innovate UK, target Ebola, plague, Marburg virus, Lassa fever, Nipah virus, chikungunya and Mayaro virus.
The money will advance promising vaccine candidates, clinical trials and technologies intended to make vaccine design and manufacture faster. It will also build the research, clinical trial and technical capacity needed to develop, test and deploy vaccines quickly when a new threat emerges, and to make those vaccines affordable and accessible in the countries at greatest risk.
Richard Pebody, UKHSA’s Director of Epidemic and Emerging Infections, cited the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a reminder that emerging diseases “are not a distant threat,” and said effective vaccines and the manufacturing capability to produce them at speed are essential alongside detection and response.
The announcement also referenced a suspected pneumonic plague case linked to a laboratory worker’s death in Russia’s Irkutsk region, with nearly 200 contacts placed under precautionary medical observation, as another sign that serious infectious disease risks persist.
The awards are delivered through the UK Vaccine Network, an expert advisory group which brings together industry, academia and funders to guide government investment. Its premise is a market failure: outbreaks of some of the deadliest diseases occur intermittently and often in poor countries, so there is little commercial incentive for industry to develop vaccines against them. The UK committed £134 million to its first phase between 2016 and 2022, with further investment committed for 2023 to 2029. Government officials note the programme previously supported development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The network maintains a priority pathogen list covering 12 families of viruses and bacteria, including Lassa fever virus, MERS, Marburg and Sudan ebolavirus, Nipah virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Rift Valley fever, chikungunya, Q fever and plague. It will not fund work on pathogens that already have licensed vaccines or advanced candidates, nor on SARS-CoV-2 or influenza. It also supports vaccine technology development suited to responding to novel pathogens, the so-called “disease X” scenario.
Health Minister Chris McDonald said investing before a crisis hits helps protect the public and ensure the UK is ready to respond to future threats. Whitty said the aim is to prevent some of the most dangerous infectious diseases in the world today.
Sources and further reading:
£33.2 million to protect public from future epidemics and pandemics — UK Health Security Agency
UK Vaccine Network — GOV.UK
This article was researched and sourced by Global Biodefense editors and reported with Claude AI assistance for drafting and editing.