WHO accelerates development of vaccines against new Ebola strain in Africa

There are currently no vaccines or approved treatments for the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, an outbreak of which has claimed the lives of more than 200 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

This is reported by 1news.az, citing international medical organizations.

According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), more than 875 confirmed cases have been recorded in just over a month, including 202 deaths.

At the same time, humanitarian organizations warn that the true scale of the infection's spread may be significantly higher, as the virus continues to circulate in remote and conflict-affected areas of Congo.

To combat the outbreak, scientists, pharmaceutical companies, and international organizations have accelerated the development of new vaccines and treatments.

The World Health Organization considers the most promising candidate to be a vaccine based on the rVSV platform, which was used to create the only licensed Ebola vaccine. The new drug is specifically adapted to fight the Bundibugyo strain.

Work is also underway on other drugs in parallel. In particular, specialists from Oxford University, together with the Serum Institute of India, are developing a vaccine on the ChAdOx1 platform, while the American company Moderna is creating a drug based on mRNA technology.