57 Days After Ebola Declaration, a Medical Milestone

Just 57 days after an Ebola emergency was declared, the UK has cleared the first human trial of a new vaccine targeting the strain behind the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The University of Oxford shot its candidate to the front of the pack—four vaccines are in development—by using the same viral vector platform as its Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID shot. Fifty healthy adults in the UK, ages 18 to 55, will get the jab "within weeks," with researchers anticipating additional trials in Africa, reports the BBC.

The vaccine is built on a genetically modified chimpanzee cold virus that carries a sliver of genetic material from the Bundibugyo species of Ebola. That snippet prompts the body to make a specific Ebola protein, which is enough to train the immune system to recognize Ebola without causing infection. Bloomberg reports the Serum Institute of India has already manufactured and stockpiled about 620,000 doses, 4,000 of which will be used in the Phase I trial, and the rest "in anticipation of later-stage trials and potential emergency use if it proves effective."