Daijiworld Media Network - Kinshasa
Kinshasa, Oct 24: A major clinical trial to evaluate vaccines against the Bundibugyo Ebola virus began on Friday in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with the first participants vaccinated as the country battles its largest recorded outbreak of the virus.
The Phase 2/3 trial, named Tumaini, was launched in Bunia, the capital of the worst-affected Ituri Province, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which is funding and supporting the study, said.
The trial comes amid a worsening Ebola crisis that has claimed more than 4,600 lives in the DRC since May. Despite the scale of the outbreak, no vaccine has yet been approved specifically against the Bundibugyo virus, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Tumaini, meaning “hope” in Swahili, aims to assess the safety, immune responses and effectiveness of several vaccine candidates, particularly among people who have been in contact with confirmed Ebola patients and face a high risk of infection.
The trial follows an adaptive platform design, allowing multiple vaccine candidates to be evaluated within a single study through a ring vaccination approach targeting contacts of confirmed cases.
The first vaccine to enter the trial is Ervebo, which is already licensed to prevent disease caused by the Zaire Ebola virus but has not been proven effective against the Bundibugyo strain.
Two additional vaccines specifically developed against the Bundibugyo virus are expected to join the trial shortly. One is being developed by Moderna, while the other is being developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Serum Institute of India.
“The launch of the Tumaini trial marks a critical step towards establishing whether candidate vaccines can effectively protect people against the Bundibugyo virus,” said Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Program.
WHO Regional Director for Africa Mohamed Janabi also welcomed the launch on Friday, saying the trial would generate crucial evidence on candidate vaccines while strengthening the response to the ongoing outbreak and preparedness for future epidemics.
According to the latest figures released by the DRC's health authorities late on Wednesday, the country had recorded 9,704 confirmed Ebola cases, including 4,687 deaths, as of October 20. The case fatality rate stood at 48.3 per cent.
The epidemic was declared in the DRC on May 15 and designated a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO two days later. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention subsequently declared it a public health emergency of continental security.
The current outbreak has become the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the DRC and the second-largest globally, after the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic.