Ebola vaccine trial to add two candidates, WHO says

World Health Organization expert groups recommended adding two new Ebola vaccine candidates to a clinical trial as doctors try to control an outbreak in Africa that has killed more than 5,300 people, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

Tedros said a trial began last month using Ervebo, a vaccine approved for Ebola virus but not for the Bundibugyo virus affecting the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He said the two candidates now recommended for the trial are ChAdOx1 BDBV, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India, and Moderna's mRNA-1469. Both were developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus, he said.

The DRC's National Institute for Biomedical Research is leading the trial, with support from partners including WHO.

Tedros said vaccines were important but did not replace measures such as early care, contact tracing, isolation, safe burials and engagement with communities.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that Africa's ongoing Ebola epidemic had killed more than 5,300 people, mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It said 10,444 cases had been confirmed and the fatality rate was more than 50 percent.