Purpose-built for physicians
Plans are underway to launch a phase 3 trial of an existing Ebola vaccine to fight the ongoing deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, WHO told Healio.
The trial could begin by mid-September, a much faster timeline than the 5 to 12 months typically needed for clinical trials being conducted outside an outbreak zone, WHO noted.
Currently, no approved vaccine exists for the rare species of Ebola, Bundibugyo ebolavirus, that is causing the outbreak, which has killed more than 2,000 people in the DRC as of Aug. 9, according to the CDC.
Instead, the phase 3 trial will use a vaccine, Ervebo (Merck), that gained approval in 2019 for a different Ebola species, Orthoebolavirus zairense. The vaccine was tested in a ring-vaccination trial during the West African epidemic — the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record — and has been deployed successfully numerous times to stop outbreaks of Orthoebolavirus zairense in the DRC.
