A lethal mice model of recombinant vesicular stomatitis viruses for EBOV-targeting prophylactic vaccines evaluation

• The recombinant VSV-EBOV is highly lethal to IFNα/β/γ R-/- mice. • The infected mice exhibit hyperviremia and distinct splenohepatic lesions. • Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus-based replicon particle vaccine can protect all IFNα/β/γ R -/- mice against VSV-EBOV challenge. • This surrogate model can be used for EBOV vaccine evaluation in BSL-2 laboratory.