In a lecture hall at the University of Rwanda in Kigali, researchers from across four continents gathered this June to launch a mission that could reshape how Africa fights a mosquito-borne disease most people have never heard of—until it arrives in their joints with devastating pain and fever.
Chikungunya, a viral infection spread by mosquitoes, has long lived in the shadow of better-known diseases like malaria and dengue. But it is becoming a growing public health threat, particularly across Africa, where its symptoms—fever, headache, joint pain and stiffness—so closely mimic other illnesses that it often goes undetected. Health workers, stretched thin and facing diseases with identical presentations, frequently miss the diagnosis entirely. A 2024 Rwanda study revealed the true scale of the problem: nearly 69 percent of sampled individuals carried antibodies indicating previous exposure to chikungunya, many without ever knowing they had been infected.
This is where the Accelerating Clinical Trials for Chikungunya Vaccine (ACT-CHIK) Project enters the picture. Launched in June at the University of Rwanda after experts from around the world convened from June 8 to 10, the four-year initiative represents an unprecedented continental effort to develop a vaccine tailored specifically for African populations. Funded with €15.3 million from the Global Health European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership 3 (EDCTP3) Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon Europe programme, the project will conduct Phase Ib/III clinical trials across Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal, testing the safety and effectiveness of an experimental vaccine called MV-CHIK, developed by Institut Pasteur on a measles-virus platform.
What makes ACT-CHIK distinctive is its architecture. The consortium brings together researchers and institutions from Africa, Europe, South America and Asia, partnering with Brazil's FIOCRUZ and South Korea's International Vaccine Institute. Rwanda itself secured a leadership role, with the University of Rwanda selected to lead the consortium's scientific component after competing for the position—a recognition of the country's growing investment in research and vaccine manufacturing infrastructure. Prof. Léon Mutesa, Director of the Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Rwanda, emphasized that the project builds on earlier vaccine development work while strengthening clinical trial capacity across the continent itself.
Two chikungunya vaccines already exist, but both target travellers from wealthy nations and are manufactured outside Africa. The new vaccine aims to fill a critical gap: a shot suitable for children and produced on the continent, with technology transfer from Institut Pasteur de Paris to Institut Pasteur de Dakar supporting vaccine production in West Africa. Early trials in Europe, Puerto Rico and the United States have already demonstrated the vaccine's safety and ability to generate immune responses.
Rwanda's selection to lead the scientific work reflects more than opportunity—it reflects a strategic shift. Dr. Menelas Nkeshimana, Head of Health Workforce Department at the Ministry of Health, noted that Rwanda's strong regulatory framework, institutional integrity, and scientific rigor have become attractive to global health investment. The country's institutions possess the systems and expertise needed not just to participate, but to lead vaccine research on the continent.
For millions across East Africa who carry the virus unknowingly, or who have experienced chikungunya's debilitating joint pain, this four-year effort offers something rare: the possibility that a vaccine designed with their needs in mind will soon be available. It represents a shift in how global health innovation happens—not for Africa, but from Africa itself.