Ebola virus: first person vaccinated in UK trial of new jab

A volunteer was injected on Friday with the first dose of a rapidly developed vaccine targeting the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola driving a deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Oxford University said.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the DRC and Uganda since the outbreak emerged in May, according to the World Health Organization.

Researchers and health organisations have since been racing to get a vaccine or treatment for the relatively rare strain to the clinical trial stage where it is tested on humans.

Earlier this month, a team at Oxford University in the UK announced it was launching the first trial for its ChAdOx1 BDBV vaccine, which uses the same technology as AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.

The first dose was administered to a 37-year-old volunteer named Ed Hunt in Oxford on Friday, a university spokesman said.

“We’ve taken this vaccine candidate from concept to clinic in just eight weeks,” David Pulido-Gomez of Oxford’s Pandemic Sciences Institute said in a statement.

“Reaching this milestone in such a short time frame reflects an extraordinary collaborative effort,” he added.