First Human Trials of Ebola Vaccine Start Next Week
The National Institutes of Health will sponsor the first trial of the vaccine, one of several being developed against Ebola. It’s fast-tracked the testing because of the outbreak of Ebola that is ravaging three West African countries.
"We have the green light to begin," said Dr. Tony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The vaccine is being developed by NIAID and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline. "Testing will take place at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland," NIH said in a statement.
Ebola has killed more than 1,500 people out of more than 3,000 infected in Liberia, West Africa and Guinea in the ongoing outbreak, by far the worst outbreak of Ebola ever seen. And the WHO says those numbers almost certainly understate the true numbers of those infected and killed.
WHO predicted on Thursday that as many as 20,000 could become infected.
The trial will enroll 20 healthy adults who will get a shot in the arm to see first if the vaccine is safe, and second if it generate an immune response that should, in theorym protect against Ebola infection.
It's the first in a series of vaccine trials that will roll out this fall. NIH with British medical foundations will separately test the vaccine in Britain, Gambia and Mali, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is discussing a trial in Nigeria.
NIAID has been working on an Ebola vaccine for years. The idea was to develop it to defend people in case Ebola or a related virus, Marburg, was ever used in a biological attack. Previous outbreaks of the virus were always too small and too easily controlled to justify developing a vaccine quickly.
NIAID was working with a small Swiss-Italian biotech company called Okairos to develop the vaccine. It’s been shown to protect monkeys against Ebola. Glaxo bought the company last year.
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