Phase-1 trial of Ebola vaccine gets underway in Uganda

Scientists in the southern Ugandan city of Masaka are conducting a phase I trial of a candidate vaccine against the deadly Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease (BDBV), a strain for which no licensed vaccine or effective treatment currently exists.

As the world's worst-ever Ebola outbreak continues to spread through eastern DR Congo, scientists in neighboring Uganda are fighting back.

They’re conducting a small scale trial of a candidate vaccine against the deadly Bundibugyo strain of the virus driving the DRC outbreak.

"The stage that we are at now is called phase one," says Eugene Rizagira, an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "So, It's a phase one vaccine trial. And in a phase one vaccine trial, what we are looking out for is whether the vaccine is safe, first and foremost and secondly, whether it enlists an appropriate immune response.”

This candidate vaccine was developed at the University of Oxford. The US-based Moderna group is working on a separate jab that uses mRNA technology.

The Uganda trial is aiming to recruit 110 volunteers for the study.

"We hope we'll complete enrollment by November this year, each person will be in the study for 12 months," Rizagira says. "So, each person will be followed up for 12 months.”

The DRC will start a full-scale human trial this month. It will test whether Ervebo, an existing Ebola jab effective against the Zaire strain, protects against Bundibugyo. It will later incorporate the Bundibugyo-specific vaccines currently under development.