Experimental Canadian Ebola vaccine wouldn’t reach Africa before 2015

Experimental Canadian Ebola vaccine wouldn’t reach Africa before 2015. HT: Crof.

Via The Globe and Mail: Experimental Canadian Ebola vaccine wouldn’t reach Africa before 2015. Excerpt:

Human trials of Canada’s experimental Ebola vaccine are expected to start in the United States this fall, but, like other vaccine candidates headed for accelerated testing in humans, the Canadian-developed injection will not be deployed to the West African outbreak until next year at the earliest. 

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced Thursday that it would begin next week enrolling healthy adult volunteers in a phase I trial of a different vaccine, developed in partnership with the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, Inc., and based on a chimpanzee cold virus.  

The experimental vaccines could still prove useful in the current West African crisis, which shows no signs of abating. 

In a bleak assessment of the future path of the outbreak, the World Health Organization warned Thursday that it could spread to as many as 20,000 people in the region and take as long as nine months to quell. 

Human trials of the Canadian vaccine are expected to follow in the fall at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring Maryland, according to NIAID, which is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Defense and an Iowa drug maker on testing the Canadian-developed vaccine in humans. 

“I think front of the line is pretty much where they [the Canadian vaccines] are right now,” Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, said. “This is a trial that’s gonna start as soon as the regulatory and other aspects of it are determined.” 

Dr. Fauci predicted it would take until the end of this year to collect enough data from the phase I trials – which are designed to ensure the experimental vaccines are safe and provoke an immune response in healthy volunteers – to determine if the products are ready to be sent to the front lines of the crisis. 

“When you’re dealing with normal human beings who are the recipients of the vaccine, safety is paramount,” Dr. Fauci said. “It’s absolutely paramount.”