Volunteer In U.K. Receives First Experimental Ebola Vaccine As Congo Cases Rise

A volunteer in England has become the first person to receive an experimental Ebola vaccine designed to combat the deadly, record-breaking outbreak in Congo.

Scientists at Oxford University said: directed the shot Friday as efforts are stepped up to combat the Bundibugyo strain of ebolavirus, which currently has no licensed vaccine or specific treatment and is spreading faster than any previous Ebola outbreak.

The volunteer, identified as Ed Hunt, 37, of Oxford. he told the BBC He said he wanted to help after seeing news about the Ebola outbreak, the third largest on record.

“I wanted to volunteer for the COVID vaccine trial but could not do so due to work commitments. After seeing the news from the Democratic Republic of Congo, I thought I wanted to do my part,” he said.

The university’s Oxford Vaccine Group said it plans to continue recruiting and vaccinating volunteers in the coming weeks while also monitoring participants.

More than 2,500 cases attributed to Bundibugyo ebolavirus have been reported since the outbreak was declared in May. More than 1,000 of those cases have died, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the actual number of people infected could be more than twice the number of confirmed cases. This is because armed conflict and other unsafe conditions prevent first responders from reaching affected areas.

“Most new cases are detected outside known contact lists, and two-thirds of deaths occur in communities.” he said last week.

Oxford’s vaccine, ChAdOx1 BDBV, was said to be administered to humans in record time. The vaccine was given a few weeks later start of vaccine trialand almost three months after the first confirmed cases of fatal viral hemorrhagic fever in Congo.

Scientists attributed the rapid creation of the vaccine to its use of the same technology as the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, as well as to the university’s decades-old vaccine production capacity through its Clinical BioManufacturing Facility (CBF) and the Serum Institute of India, which has already produced and stockpiled 620,000 doses.

Dr. from the Oxford Institute of Pandemic Sciences. “Achieving this milestone in such a short period of time reflects an extraordinary collaborative effort,” David Pulido-Gomez said in a statement. “Working with our colleagues at CBF and SII, we took this vaccine candidate from concept to the clinic in just eight weeks.”

The outbreak was the 17th epidemic in Congo since the virus was first identified in 1976.