Uganda to roll out Ebola vaccine trial

With neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo going for months with an Ebola outbreak that has claimed lives including those of health workers, Uganda in partnership with London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is set to conduct an Ebola Vaccine Trial.

The trial will be headed by Medicine San Frontier in Mbarara and the Medical research Council funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation.

In an interview with Prof. Pansiono Kaleebu the Principal Investigator for the Ebola Vaccine trial, also the executive director of the Uganda Virus Research Institute, the trial comes after successful trials under phase one and two conducted in Masaka.

With funding from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation to a tune of $2.5 million, the vaccine is made by Janssen Pharmaceutical called AD26.ZEBOV/MVABN.

"With this vaccine you give two vaccines concurrently one as a trial and the other to boost. When proved successful,  he trial vaccine will focus on front line health workers," Prof Kaleebu said.

The Ebola vaccine trial will involve 800 individuals from all parts of the country.

The Uganda Virus Research Institute has conducted several promising studies on the vaccine before.

In 2015, Makerere University Walter Reed Project conducted an Ebola vaccine study on 90 people in Kampala to establish whether the vaccines RV 442 is able to stimulate the body to defend itself against Ebola Virus.

The only available vaccines THE VSV-EBOV was in December 2016 found to have a 70 – 100% effectiveness, making it the first proven vaccine against the disease.

It is the same vaccine that has been used in Democratic Republic of Congo.