WHO sees progress as Ebola drug trials get under way

Several drug and vaccine trials have now begun as part of the fight against the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that even where the drugs and vaccines prove effective it will take months before they are available to all those affected.

Speaking in Geneva, Vasee Moorthy from the WHO said there is promising data from pre-clinical trials which are due to be analysed later this week.

He said 50 patients have now been enrolled in the first drug trial across three treatment centres. A total of 10 centres are to be included in the trial, but this will require more trained staff to monitor the patients properly.

Twenty-five people are being treated with a potential prophylactic. These are mostly relatives who have had direct contact with an infected person. The drug is intended to prevent the disease from developing in them.

Finally, the first trial of a potential vaccine has begun on healthy volunteers in the UK. A second trial is due to start this week in Canada.

The trials will assess the immune response following administration of the vaccine. The first vaccine was developed at the University of Oxford and the Serum Institute in India, the second by the company Moderna.

While vaccines have been developed for some Ebola variants, there is still no vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain, which has already claimed around 1,700 lives in Congo.