The National Institutes of Health announced Thursday it will begin human testing of an investigational vaccine to prevent Ebola.
The testing of the vaccine, which was co-developed by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and global healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline, will begin next week at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, according to NIH.
The development of the vaccine was accelerated earlier this month due to the situation in West Africa, where an outbreak of the deadly virus is believed to be responsible for an estimated 1,550 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
In a press conference Thursday morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said researchers are recruiting 20 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 50 to receive one or two doses by injection of the experimental vaccine and be evaluated over a year.
The trials are designed to be conducted on healthy adults to see if the vaccine is safe and causes an adequate immune response, according to NIH.
“Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures, including good infection control practices, isolation, contact tracing, quarantine and provision of personal protective equipment,” Fauci said in a press statement. “However, a vaccine will ultimately be an important tool in the prevention effort. The launch of Phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is the first step in a long process.”
To create the vaccine, researchers attached segments of genetic material from two known Ebola viruses to a type of chimpanzee cold virus, which they expect will prompt an immune response from individuals. The vaccine “cannot cause a vaccinated individual to become infected with Ebola,” according to NIH.
The vaccine has already been tested on “nonhuman primates” and has “performed extremely well” in protecting them from Ebola infection, according to Fauci. The specific vaccine being tested is based on three earlier Ebola vaccines that have been in testing since 2003, according to NIH.
The Ebola virus causes symptoms in humans including fever, sore throat and headaches, which can escalate into impaired liver and kidney functioning, according to the World Health Organization. Ebola outbreaks have fatality rates up to 90 percent and have occurred primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa near tropical rainforests.
