R&D Blueprint
The R&D Blueprint is a global strategy and preparedness plan that allows the rapid activation of research and development activities during epidemics. Its aim is to fast-track the availability of effective tests, vaccines and medicines that can be used to save lives and avert large scale crises. With WHO as convener, the broad global coalition of experts who have contributed to the Blueprint come from medical, scientific and regulatory backgrounds. WHO Member States welcomed the development of the Blueprint at the World Health Assembly in May 2016.
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R&D Blueprint and Ebola/Marburg

Marburg and Ebola viruses are zoonotic pathogens, members of the Filoviridae family, which cause severe, often fatal illness in humans. Marburg virus disease was first identified during an outbreak in 1967, when laboratory workers in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and Belgrade, Yugoslavia (what is now Serbia) were infected with a previously unknown infectious agent. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in what is now, Nzara, South Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.

Since they were first recognized, these filoviruses have caused regular disease outbreaks in Africa, each affecting limited numbers of people. However, the 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa, the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak ever with over 11,000 deaths, demonstrated that filoviruses represent a very serious public health threat.

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