SA healthcare workers in Sierra Leone might be among the frontline staff offered experimental Ebola vaccines when clinical trials get under way in West Africa in the next two months, it has emerged.
Business Day reports that researchers and vaccine manufacturers are pushing ahead with plans to test whether three experimental Ebola vaccines are effective against the virus, racing against time as the number of patients falls. The Health Department has sent a team of experts from the National Health Laboratory Service to run mobile testing facilities in Sierra Leone, and last month called for healthcare workers to volunteer there too.
Transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone but cases are dwindling in Guinea and Liberia – the two other countries worst affected. Since determining a vaccine’s efficacy requires comparing how many vaccinated people get sick compared to those who are not given the shots, this comparison gets increasingly difficult as the number of patients falls.
A clinical trial is due to begin in Liberia by the end of the month, and studies in Sierra Leone and Guinea will begin in February. It is likely to take up to six months to determine whether the vaccines are effective.
[link url="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/health/2015/01/19/sa-role-in-ebola-vaccine-clinical-trial"]Full Business Day report[/link]