{"id":7539,"date":"2022-12-07T14:29:23","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T14:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugandaupdatenews.com\/?p=7539"},"modified":"2022-12-07T14:30:13","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T14:30:13","slug":"ugandas-disappearing-ebola-outbreak-challenges-vaccine-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/ugandas-disappearing-ebola-outbreak-challenges-vaccine-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda\u2019s disappearing Ebola outbreak challenges vaccine testing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Public health officials call for African stockpiles of experimental vaccines to speed responses in future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Uganda announced uplifting news about the Ebola outbreak that surfaced there in mid-September: The last known patient had recovered and been discharged from a hospital. Health officials hope that signals the spread of the virus has slowed dramatically, if not stopped altogether. Yet the aggressive containment efforts that led to the waning of the outbreak also means a quickly arranged trial of experimental ebolavirus vaccines faces formidable hurdles. The goal of the so-called ring trial is to test the efficacy of the vaccines by giving them to contacts of known cases. But the number of potential participants is dwindling fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan is still to start the trial as soon as this week, but it may have to be called off or redesigned. The issue is sensitive, given the amount of effort put into securing vaccines, obtaining permits, and raising roughly $9 million in funding for the trial. Multiple people close to the study\u2014including three Ugandan researchers\u2014refused to speak to Science<\/em> on the record about its prospects. But Mark Feinberg, who heads IAVI, a New York City\u2013based nonprofit that has the rights to a Sudan ebolavirus vaccine, says, \u201cWhether the study will start or not I think is an open question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 25 November, Uganda had 141 confirmed cases, 55 of whom had died. WHO tallies include another 22 deaths as likely due to the virus, which had spread, alarmingly, to Kampala, the heavily populated capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last confirmed case was diagnosed on 13 November, save for a stillborn baby on 27 November whose mother had already recovered. After 42 days have passed without a case, the outbreak officially will have ended. But epidemiologist Mike Ryan, director of WHO\u2019s Health Emergencies Programme, cautioned at a press conference last week that there were still \u201csignificant gaps in tracing some of the chains of transmission,\u201d which means new cases and their contacts may soon surface. \u201cEbola always has a sting in its tail,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers had hoped for a chance to test new Ebola vaccines. A vaccine has been approved since 2019 for the Zaire ebolavirus, which has caused multiple outbreaks in several countries, including a widespread epidemic in West Africa that ran from 2013 to 2016. But monkey studies suggest that vaccine will not work against the genetically distinct Sudan ebolavirus behind this Uganda outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the new Ebola cases surfaced, several vaccines for the Sudan ebolavirus were in development, and Ugandan health officials on 2 December approved testing three candidates. But at the start of the outbreak no manufacturer had enough doses in vials to ship. Doses of vaccines developed by the nonprofit Sabin Vaccine Institute and, separately the University of Oxford may arrive in Uganda over the next few days. An expert committee organized by WHO says the most promising of the vaccines, originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada before being taken up by Merck and then licensed to IAVI, has lagged farther behind because company did not realize until nearly a month into the current outbreak that\u00a0it had 100,000 old but viable doses frozen in bulk supplies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vaccines may arrive too late to assess their worth, however. To be eligible for the ring trial, participants must have been exposed to an infected person within 21 days. As of this week, only a few hundred people\u2014about 20 per case\u2014remain eligible. Without new cases, that number decreases each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, WHO\u2019s main representative helping organize the study, said at last week\u2019s press conference the trial was \u201cimminent\u201d but had no set launch date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if the ring trial doesn\u2019t launch, Feinberg says he hopes Uganda will stage a phase 1 safety study of the IAVI\/Merck vaccine\u2014most likely in health care workers. If it triggers immune responses that mirror the ones seen with the successful Zaire ebolavirus vaccine, the new data, combined with studies that show immunized monkeys have solid protection against the virus, could persuade regulators to approve it for use in future outbreaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uganda outbreak highlights the need for a more streamlined outbreak response system. \u201cPeople got these doses together really, really quickly,\u201d says Nicole Lurie, U.S. director for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations\u2014but perhaps not fast enough to save lives. \u201cWe need a reserve of [investigational] vaccines so they\u2019ll be at the ready for the next outbreak,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One answer, says Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is to stockpile experimental vaccines on the continent\u2014for Ebola and other emerging diseases\u2014and agree on trial protocols ahead of time. \u201cWe have to crack this,\u201d he says, noting that to store COVID-19 vaccines GAVI supplied Uganda and many lower income countries with \u201380\u00b0C freezers that could be repurposed for other vaccine stockpiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berkley acknowledges that creating and maintaining stockpiles would cost money, and it also means periodically throwing away vaccines that expire and replacing them. Still, he says, \u201cIt would have been awfully nice to have had 100,000 doses ready to go at the start of this outbreak. That\u2019s where I think we have to go next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public health officials call for African stockpiles of experimental vaccines to speed responses in future Last week, Uganda announced uplifting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[215,254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-report","category-public-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ebola.webp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13745,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/uganda-confirms-ebola-outbreak-after-death-of-nurse-in-capital-kampala\/","url_meta":{"origin":7539,"position":0},"title":"Uganda confirms Ebola outbreak after death of nurse in capital Kampala","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"January 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The case marks the first since the outbreak of Ebola in Uganda three years ago Uganda has reported an outbreak of Ebola following the death of a nurse from the virus in the capital Kampala. 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