WHO recommends two vaccine candidates for Ebola clinical trial

The World Health Organization’s expert groups recommended adding two vaccine candidates to a clinical trial during the Ebola outbreak response, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. The candidates are ChAdOx1 BDBV, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India, and Moderna’s mRNA-1469. Both were developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus, Tedros said.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research is leading the trial, with WHO and other partners supporting it. A trial using the Ervebo vaccine began last month, but the vaccine is approved for Ebola virus, not Bundibugyo virus. Africa CDC said on Monday that the epidemic had killed more than 5,300 people and reported 10,444 confirmed cases, with a fatality rate of more than 50%.