LONDON, May 22 (Bernama-Anadolu) — Scientists at the University of Oxford are developing a vaccine that could be ready within months to help curb the Ebola outbreak, according to a report on Friday.
The researchers said they are working urgently in case the outbreak escalates and their experimental vaccine is needed, Anadolu Ajansi citing the BBC reported.
The vaccine uses the same technology the team developed during the COVID-19 pandemic — a highly adaptable technology, known as ChAdOx1 — that can be quickly modified to work against different infections.
“Once we get starting material to them they can go fast and they can go big,” Teresa Lambe, Calleva head of Vaccine Immunology at the Oxford Vaccine Group, told the BBC.
Animal testing of the vaccine is believed to already be under way in Oxford, according to the report.
The outbreak was officially announced on May 15 in Ituri province in eastern Congo. Since then, Congolese health officials and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have logged roughly 600 suspected infections and 139 deaths.
The outbreak has since expanded to North Kivu and now South Kivu. Two imported cases involving Congolese citizens, one of whom died, were reported in neighboring Uganda.
Meanwhile, director general of World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as “deeply worrisome,” warning that the scale of the epidemic is likely far greater than confirmed figures suggest.
He said in a post on X that 82 Ebola cases and seven deaths have so far been confirmed in the DR Congo, but added: “We know the epidemic in the DRC is much larger.”
There are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, he noted.
Tedros said the situation in Uganda is currently stable, with two confirmed cases and one reported death, adding that no new infections or deaths had been recorded there.
— BERNAMA-ANADOLU