A newly developed Ebola vaccine has been approved for human clinical trials after receiving clearance from the United Kingdom‘s medicines regulator. According to a report by BBC, the vaccine, developed by scientists at the University of Oxford, was designed within eight weeks of a public health emergency being declared on……
A newly developed Ebola vaccine has been approved for human clinical trials after receiving clearance from the United Kingdom‘s medicines regulator.
According to a report by BBC, the vaccine, developed by scientists at the University of Oxford, was designed within eight weeks of a public health emergency being declared on May 17.
It is the first of four experimental Ebola vaccines currently under development to advance to clinical testing.
Researchers have begun recruiting volunteers, with the first doses expected to be administered to healthy adults in the UK within the coming weeks.
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The vaccine is aimed at combating the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the disease has claimed 625 lives and resulted in 1,792 laboratory-confirmed cases.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, which has previously been responsible for only two known outbreaks.
Scientists explained that the six known Ebola virus species are closely related but require different vaccines and treatments, meaning there are currently no approved medicines or vaccines specifically targeting the Bundibugyo strain.
Health experts say the outbreak remains uncontrolled and is being fuelled by insecurity and high population movement in conflict-affected areas, increasing the urgency of developing an effective vaccine to curb further transmission.