Uganda has reportedly begun the largest Ebola vaccine trial to date that is likely to prevent the disease from spreading, the health authorities announced on Monday, reported Reuters.
Uganda’s Medical Research Council (MRC) said the trial of the MVA-BN vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson is expected to last two years. The trial will cover 800 people in the Mbarara district in southwest Uganda including health care professionals, ambulance drivers, burial teams and cleaners.
MRC spokeswoman Pamela Nabukenya Wairagala said the vaccine trial had already begun. Led by Ugandan researchers, the trial is also being supported by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“Developing effective vaccines and treatments against Ebola are…global public health priorities. In this trial we hope to avail more information that will help us work towards having a licensed Ebola vaccine,” the vaccination project’s lead researcher Pontiano Kaleebu told Reuters.
Currently, there is no licenced drug that can prevent or treat Ebola although a range of experimental drugs is in development. This is the first time that a vaccine has been used as a full-scale weapon against the virus. The health authorities have been giving US pharma group Merck’s rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, a product that has yet to be licenced but has been shown to be safe and effective.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for its deployment to be expanded and has recommended the Johnson & Johnson vaccine also be rolled out in order to meet needs. Notably, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been previously tested on more than 6,000 people in Europe, the US and African nations including Uganda.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has already killed more than 1,800 people. The outbreak, which began a year ago, has become the second-worst on record. Rwanda, which also neighbors Congo and Uganda, is on high alert after the disease spread to the Congolese town of Goma, a trading hub near their border.
