STAT News – A clinical trial of one or perhaps two experimental vaccines designed to protect against the Ebola Sudan virus could soon begin in Uganda, as long as the country agrees to allow the research to take place, an official of the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The trial could get underway within a couple of weeks and definitely before the end of October, said Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, who heads WHO’s R&D Blueprint effort to develop drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines to respond to outbreaks of rare and dangerous pathogens.
Henao-Restrepo and her team in WHO’s Health Emergencies Program have been meeting since last week to try to determine if any of the vaccines in development are far enough along to warrant testing in the fast-growing Ebola Sudan outbreak, which was first recognized early last week.