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Researchers in Uganda are set to introduce a second experimental Ebola vaccine to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, where the virus has claimed more than 1,800 lives in the past year. The trial, supported by Doctors without Borders and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will be the largest yet conducted with this vaccine.
Over the course of the outbreak, about 180,000 people have received an experimental vaccine produced by Merck Pharmaceuticals. Although effective, the vaccine could not overcome impediments to virus containment in the country due to violence and resistance to health care interventions from communities that hadn’t experienced the disease. The new vaccine, produced by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, has been tested in about 6,000 people, mostly African.
“It’s one of those vaccines that have shown a lot of promise in animal studies but also in other trials that have been conducted,” says ...
