Kinshasa, Oct 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) A major clinical trial to evaluate vaccines against the Bundibugyo Ebola virus began Friday in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with the first participants vaccinated as the country battles the largest recorded outbreak of the virus.
The Phase 2/3 trial, known as Tumaini, was launched in Bunia, the capital of the hardest-hit Ituri Province, said the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is funding and supporting the study.
The trial comes amid a worsening Ebola crisis that has claimed more than 4,600 lives in the DRC since May. Despite the scale of the outbreak, no vaccine has yet been approved specifically against the Bundibugyo virus, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Tumaini, meaning "hope" in Swahili, aims to assess the safety, immune responses and effectiveness of several vaccine candidates, particularly among people who have been in contact with confirmed Ebola patients and face a high risk of infection.
The trial uses an adaptive platform design, allowing multiple vaccine candidates to be evaluated within a single study through a ring vaccination approach targeting contacts of confirmed cases.
The first vaccine entering the trial is Ervebo, which is already licensed to prevent disease caused by the Zaire Ebola virus but has not been proven effective against the Bundibugyo virus.
Two additional vaccines specifically developed against the Bundibugyo virus, one by Moderna and another by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Serum Institute of India, are expected to join the trial "shortly."
"The launch of the Tumaini trial marks a critical step towards establishing whether candidate vaccines can effectively protect people against the Bundibugyo virus," said Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Program.
WHO Regional Director for Africa Mohamed Janabi also welcomed the launch Friday, saying the trial would generate crucial evidence on candidate vaccines while strengthening the response to the ongoing outbreak and preparedness for future epidemics.
According to the latest figures released late Wednesday by the DRC's health authorities, the country had recorded 9,704 confirmed Ebola cases, including 4,687 deaths, as of October 20, with a case fatality rate of 48.3 per cent.
The epidemic was declared in the DRC on May 15 and designated a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO two days later. The Africa CDC subsequently declared it a public health emergency of continental security.
The current Ebola outbreak has become the largest and deadliest ever recorded in the DRC and the second-largest Ebola outbreak globally, after the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic.
–IANS
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Source: IANS
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