DHSC funds eight vaccine projects with £33.2m against Ebola, Marburg and Lassa

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced £33.2 million for eight vaccine projects against epidemic diseases on 8 October 2026. The money comes through the UK Vaccine Network and is delivered by Innovate UK, with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) among the bodies behind the announcement ¹.

What the funding covers

The eight projects target Ebola, plague, Marburg, Lassa fever, Nipah virus, chikungunya and Mayaro ¹. DHSC says the awards will move forward candidate vaccines and clinical trials, as well as technologies intended to speed up vaccine design and manufacture ¹. The stated aim is the capability to develop, test and deploy vaccines quickly when an outbreak starts, and to keep the resulting vaccines affordable and available in the countries most at risk ¹.

Five of the eight projects are funded from Official Development Assistance, the aid budget that supports eligible developing countries ¹. The UK Vaccine Network has form here. DHSC credits the programme with supporting development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine ¹.

The department gives the clinical case in plain figures. Ebola has an average case fatality rate of around 50%, and there is still no approved vaccine or antiviral for Marburg, which caused outbreaks in Rwanda in 2024 and Tanzania in 2025 ¹. Richard Pebody, director of epidemic and emerging infections at UKHSA, pointed to the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ¹.

What it means for the market

For UK vaccine developers and their research and manufacturing suppliers, this is a targeted pot rather than a broad programme. The £33.2 million is shared across eight projects, and DHSC does not give the split between them ¹.

Health minister Chris McDonald tied the awards to the life sciences sector as well as to preparedness, saying the investment would back scientists to "develop and deploy vaccines faster" while "supporting our world-leading life sciences sector" ¹. Pebody said that "Having effective vaccines and the manufacturing capability to produce them at speed is essential" ¹. The emphasis on manufacturing capability and faster design points to platform and process technology, not only to individual vaccine candidates.

For NHS and public health buyers there is no immediate procurement consequence. The projects sit at the research and trial stage, and the announcement makes no commitment to purchase or stockpile any resulting vaccine ¹.

Caveats

DHSC does not name the organisations leading the eight projects, the amount each receives, or the development stage of each candidate ¹. It gives no timetable for trial results. The announcement also does not say which five projects draw on aid funding, so the share of the money tied to work in low and middle income countries cannot yet be judged ¹.