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The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Wednesday that clinical trials for three candidate vaccines against a deadly Ebola strain will launch in the Democratic Republic of Congo by October or November.
The official death toll from the nation’s 17th Ebola outbreak surpassed 3,000 out of more than 6,000 infected individuals.
Health officials believe the Bundibugyo species of the virus began spreading undetected in late January, forcing medical teams to scramble responses in eastern conflict zones without approved treatments.
Researchers are advancing two new targeted candidate vaccines, currently undergoing safety testing in the UK and Canada.
Moderna is developing one candidate using mRNA technology, while the University of Oxford is testing the second.
Concurrently, health authorities plan to evaluate Merck’s Ervebo—an existing vaccine approved for the Zaire Ebola strain—in a full-scale human trial to determine if it provides cross-protection against the Bundibugyo strain.
The UN health agency aims to conduct a unified trial in the DRC evaluating multiple candidates simultaneously, starting with Ervebo following the delivery of 16,250 doses for frontline medical workers in Kisangani.
WHO guidelines emphasise that health workers should receive Ervebo strictly within clinical trial protocols until researchers confirm its efficacy against the current strain.
