WHO approves clinical trials on two new Ebola vaccines

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended adding two new candidate vaccines to the ongoing Tumaini clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to combat the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak.

Both vaccines are specifically designed to target the Bundibugyo virus, which has driven the large outbreak in the DRC. The evaluation is led by the DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research with support from the WHO and international partners. This follows an earlier phase of the trial that tested the Ervebo vaccine, which was built for the Zaire strain rather than the Bundibugyo strain.