IVI and Liberia

Member State Relations

On 8 September 2005, the government of Liberia deposited an Instrument of Accession to the IVI Establishment Agreement with the United Nations.

Ongoing Collaboration 

Advancing Research Capacity in West Africa (ARC-WA)

Since 2023, IVI has been leading a consortium working on two tracks:

• Track A: Preparing clinical trial sites in West Africa for Good Clinical Practices (GCP)-compliant Phase 2b and 3 Lassa Fever vaccine clinical trials. 
• Track B: Developing and advancing concepts specific for outbreak scenarios to prepare and sustain clinical trial facilities in West Africa and—together with local and regional partners as well as stakeholders in the global ecosystem—implementing clinical research strategies and procedures to rapidly initiate clinical evidence generation around vaccines and other biological countermeasures.

Clinical trial sites are being established in Kenema, Sierra Leone; Phebe, Liberia; and Owo, Irrua, Abakaliki, and Bauchi, Nigeria.  Wider engagement activities in West Africa and the Sahel are planned. 

The project is supported by a $17.9 million USD grant from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). CEPI sees this project in West Africa as a critical component of their 100 Day Mission, to be able to prepare the sub-continent with a disease-agnostic network that can respond to generate research to any pathogen in an outbreak scenario. They intend to work with Africa CDC to roll out a similar model across the whole of Africa.

Consortium members and partners include the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Margan Clinical Research Organization (MMARCRO) in Ghana, RCGH, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Germany, the CEPI Enable Project, IAVI, Pharmalys, IQVIA, Edes & Associates, and Africa CDC.