| Summary: | Onchocerciasis remains a debilitating neglected tropical disease. Due to the many challenges of current control methods, an effective vaccine against the causative agent <i>Onchocerca volvulus</i> is urgently needed. Mice and cynomolgus macaque non-human primates (NHPs) were immunized with a vaccine consisting of a fusion of two <i>O. volvulus</i> protein antigens, <i>Ov</i>-103 and <i>Ov</i>-RAL-2 (<i>Ov</i>-FUS-1), and three different adjuvants: Advax-CpG, alum, and AlT4. All vaccine formulations induced high antigen-specific IgG titers in both mice and NHPs. Challenging mice with <i>O. volvulus</i> L3 contained within subcutaneous diffusion chambers demonstrated that <i>Ov</i>-FUS-1/Advax-CpG-immunized animals developed protective immunity, durable for at least 11 weeks. Passive transfer of sera, collected at several time points, from both mice and NHPs immunized with <i>Ov</i>-FUS-1/Advax-CpG transferred protection to naïve mice. These results demonstrate that <i>Ov</i>-FUS-1 with the adjuvant Advax-CpG induces durable protective immunity against <i>O. volvulus</i> in mice and NHPs that is mediated by vaccine-induced humoral factors.
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