Britain And Canada Manage To Develop Promising Vaccines Against Ebola

A senior UN official has confirmed that two experimental Ebola vaccines are the "front runners" in the race to stop the transmission of the virus. The first vaccine was developed by the British company GlaxoSmithKline, and the other one by the Government of Canada.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday (21 Oct) in Geneva, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Information and Systems Dr. Marie Paule Kieny said "we still have the two lead candidates the one developed by GlaxoSmit Kline and this vaccine is called shimp ad 3. It's based on a back bone -if I may say- of an adino virus, which normally infect the chimpanzee. It expresses one Ebola like protein so therefore of course although it's a live vaccine it cannot transmit Ebola. There's no genetic material of Ebola apart from the gene coding for a single protein."

She explained that the vaccine is non-replicative. It's attenuated, adding "it is currently in clinical trials in the US, in Oxford and in Mali and it will start enter clinical trials in Lausanne by the end of this month or the very first days of next month."
Dr. Kieny noted that the second "front runner" is a vaccine which was developed by the public health agency of Canada.

She also said "the license has been passed to a company called New Link in the US and the government of Canada has as you know donated already in august 800 vials of this vaccine to the WHO."

The expert explained that the World Health Organization (WHO) clinical trials involve 250 volunteers. Half of them will be tested in November in Lausanne, Switzerland. Meanwhile, trials are underway in the US, Oxford and Mali. The vaccines are expected to be used in West Africa in early January.

Kieny added "the attention and the will of everybody, the global community including the manufactures to make this available as soon as possible makes it that the investments are made at this moment nearly without regard of the cost these investments. So I don't know exactly how much vaccine will be available in 2015 but it will be in 2015, that's absolutely for sure."

Finally, she said "at this point we don't know if the vaccines are really safe and we don't know if they work. And if they work, how efficacious are they? Are they protecting at 100 percent? This is very rare."

SHOTLIST:
21 OCTOBER 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Exterior Geneva
Presser
Journalists' table
Journalists
Presser and dais
Presser

SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Marie Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Information and Systems:
"On vaccine so this is an area where there is really a lot of activity also. So we still have the two lead candidates the one developed by Glaxo Smith Kline and this vaccine is called shimp ad 3 it's based on a back bone if I may say of an adino virus which normally infect the chimpanzee. It expresses one Ebola like protein so therefore of course although it's a live vaccine it cannot transmit Ebola. There's no genetic material of Ebola apart from the gene coding for a single protein."

SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Marie Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Information and Systems:
"So this vaccine is non replicative. It's attenuated. It is currently in clinical trials in the US, in Oxford and in Mali and it will start enter clinical trials in Lausanne by the end of this month or the very first days of next month."

SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Marie Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Information and Systems:
"The second front runner -if I may say- is a vaccine which was developed by the public health agency of Canada. The license has been passed to a company called New Link in the US and the government of Canada has as you know donated already in august 800 vials of this vaccine to the WHO."

SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Marie Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Information and Systems:
"The attention and the will of everybody, the global community including the manufactures to make this available as soon as possible makes it that the investments are made at this moment nearly without regard of the cost these investments. So I don't know exactly how much vaccine will be available in 2015 but it will be in 2015, that's absolutely for sure."

SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Marie Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director General for Health Information and Systems:
"First at this point we don't know if the vaccines are really safe and we don't know if they work. And if they work, how efficacious are they? Are they protecting at 100%? This is very rare."

DURATION: 02:33