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1st person inoculated in trial for Ebola vaccine to protect against strain behind DRC outbreak
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos • • health
Key Points:
- The first person has been vaccinated in the Tumaini clinical trial, which aims to evaluate vaccine candidates against the Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) responsible for the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
- The BDBV outbreak has caused over 10,000 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths, with no existing vaccines or treatments currently available for this rare Ebola variant.
- The trial is co-led by the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in the DRC and the University of Antwerp, involving multiple partners including Médecins Sans Frontières, WHO, and CEPI, and includes participants who have been in contact with confirmed BDBV cases.
- Participants receive either a BDBV vaccine candidate or standard treatment initially, then switch interventions on day 29 to ensure all receive a vaccine candidate while maintaining trial blinding.
- Vaccine candidates being tested include ERVEBO, originally developed for Zaire ebolavirus, and Bundibugyo-specific vaccines by Moderna and the University of Oxford, with the trial notably including children and pregnant women to address historically underrepresented groups.
