Experimental Vaccine for Ebola Ready for Use on Volunteers

A trial of an experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus is to begin in Oxford. The first of 60 healthy volunteers will be injected with the vaccine. It contains only a small portion of genetic material from the virus, so it cannot cause the disease. Normally it would take years of human trials before a completely new vaccine was approved for use. But such is the urgency of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa that this experimental vaccine is being fast tracked at an astonishing rate.

 

If the trials are successful, it could be used to immunise health workers in affected areas by the end of the year. By then, around 10,000 doses should be available. The vaccine is being developed by GlaxoSmithKline and the US National Institutes of Health.

Blood tests from the volunteers will reveal the extent of their antibody response within two to four weeks.