Reuters/London
The first volunteer in a fast-tracked British safety trial of an experimental Ebola vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline received the injection yesteray, trial organisers said.
The candidate Ebola vaccine, which GSK co-developed with the US National Institutes of Health, has also been given to 10 volunteers taking part in a separate trial in America, and so far there were no signs of any serious adverse reactions, doctors said.
The vaccine is designed to specifically target the Zaire strain of Ebola, the one circulating in the West Africa epidemic, the worst Ebola outbreak recorded.
Since the vaccine contains no infectious Ebola virus material, only one of its genes, experts say there are no concerns that any of the subjects will contract the deadly disease.
Latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show about 2,500 people have died of Ebola in an outbreak that started in March and has infected almost 5,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
The British trial is being run by a team at Oxford University.
A spokeswoman for the Oxford team said the first volunteer in the UK trial was vaccinated early yesterday, but gave no further information. She said more details would be given later. Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told a US Senate panel on Tuesday that “no red flags” indicating serious adverse reactions have been found in the 10 healthy volunteers vaccinated there so far.
The trials are seeking to determine not only whether the vaccine is safe, or causes adverse side effects, but also whether it triggers the production of antibodies against the Ebola virus.
The aim is to complete the tests by the end of 2014, after which vaccines could be deployed on an emergency basis.
