First person vaccinated during trial of new Ebola jab

PARIS: A volunteer was injected on Friday with the first dose of a rapidly developed vaccine targeting the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola driving a deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Oxford University said.

More than 1,270 people have been killed out of nearly 3,000 infections in the DRC and Uganda since the outbreak emerged in May, according to the most recent figures from the World Health Organization.

Researchers and health organizations have since been racing to get a vaccine or treatment for the relatively rare strain to the clinical trial stage where it is tested on humans.

Earlier this month, a team at Oxford University in the UK announced it was launching the first trial for its ChAdOx1 BDBV vaccine, which uses the same technology as AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.

The first dose was administered to a 37-year-old volunteer named Ed Hunt in Oxford on Friday, a university spokesman told AFP.