Lassa hemorrhagic fever is a disease endemic to Western and Central Africa. It is also the most commonly imported hemorrhagic fever disease with numerous cases reported in travelers to the region throughout the forty one years since its first characterization in Nigeria. Lassa fever afflicts an estimated 300,000 or more people in Western Africa each year, with approximately 5,000 fatalities. These statistics may underreport the actual number of infections and overall fatality rate from the disease; in that modern, highly sensitive, specific, and rapid recombinant protein-based diagnostics recently implemented in Sierra Leone have demonstrated a higher prevalence amongst native populations. Despite significant advances in the diagnosis of Lassa fever control of the disease in resource poor and settings with vastly different social practices from those of western societies is both impractical and ecologically undesirable. The development of a robust vaccine platform that would confer long term protective immunity against Lassa fever and related Old world arenaviral agents is a highly desirable, more readily implementable and manageable means to control the disease. Such a vaccine would have applications both in the global health and biodefense arenas. To this end, critical aspects of Lassa virus gene expression were studied with the end goal of designing a non-infectious, non-replicative virus-like particle (VLP platform expressing all relevant immunogenic and protective arenaviral components. LASV VLP were immunogenic in mice, but ongoing and future studies will be aimed at determining their protective efficacy in susceptible animal models. A human vaccine comprised of LASV VLP is the ultimate endpoint
