HEALTH-EBOLA/WHO-WFP Swiss test GSK Ebola vaccine on some volunteers going to Africa, WHO says

Record ID: 708226

  • Title: HEALTH-EBOLA/WHO-WFP Swiss test GSK Ebola vaccine on some volunteers going to Africa, WHO says
  • Date: 28th October 2014
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (OCTOBER 28, 2014) (REUTERS) FLAGS OUTSIDE UNITED NATIONS BUILDING EXTERIOR OF U.N. HEADQUARTERS NEWS CONFERENCE UNDERWAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SPOKESMAN, TARIK JASAREVIC, SAYING: "This approval means that approximately 120 individuals in Lausanne will be used to trial these vaccines as volunteers. The trial is also ongoing in Mali, United Kingdom and United States. The vaccines is based on genetically modified chimpanzee adenovirus." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SPOKESMAN, TARIK JASAREVIC, SAYING: "Now it's really important to balance any measure between what's perceived as protecting a population and the risk of stigmatisation. We desperately need international health workers, we keep calling for health workers, they are really the key to this response and these people should not be treated, when coming home, in a way that they would be stigmatised by the rest of the population." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SPOKESMAN, TARIK JASAREVIC, SAYING: "We take this really seriously because what example of Senegal has shown is that if there is timely and decisive action on contact tracing, it is possible to avoid further spread. We need really to help national health authorities, training has already started for contact tracers." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME SPOKESWOMAN, ELISABETH BYRS, SAYING: "In Sierra Leone local weekly markets have been banned, in Monrovia, Liberia, the price of cassava flour more than doubled after the closure of the border with Sierra Leone where the commodity is produced. So far, impacts on food prices have been mixed. In Liberia, prices for imported rice have continued to increase beyond their seasonal pattern, in some areas, we see food prices dropping, for example potatoes in Guinea." JOURNALIST TYPING ON KEYBOARD (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME SPOKESWOMAN, ELISABETH BYRS, SAYING: "Should the Ebola epidemic last another four to five months when farmers begin to prepare their land, there is a real concern that planting for 2015 harvest could be affected. The impact of Ebola is likely to limit food access in affected communities for months to come." UNITED NATIONS SIGN AND LOGO ON BUILDING / FLAG POLES
  • Embargoed: 12th November 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Switzerland
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVADZEJIHNJ8VFPZLVG7JRZPB601
  • Story Text: Switzerland's drug regulator said on Tuesday (October 28) it had approved the testing of an experimental Ebola vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline on healthy volunteers, some of whom will be travelling to West Africa as medical staff.
    The trial will be conducted among 120 volunteer participants at the Lausanne University Hospital, with support from the World Health Organization.
    "This approval means that approximately 120 individuals in Lausanne will be used to trial these vaccines as volunteers. The trial is also ongoing in Mali, United Kingdom and United States. The vaccines is based on genetically modified chimpanzee adenovirus," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a news briefing in Geneva.
    The volunteers, who include many medical students, will be monitored for six months to determine both the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. There is a small control group of volunteers among them who will be given a placebo.
    Federal health officials on Monday revamped guidelines for doctors and nurses returning home to the United States from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, stopping well short of controversial mandatory quarantines being imposed by some U.S. states.
    Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called for voluntary home quarantine for people at the highest risk for Ebola infection but said most medical workers returning from the three countries at the centre of the epidemic would require daily monitoring without isolation.
    New York and New Jersey are among a handful of states to impose mandatory quarantines on returning doctors and nurses amid fears of the virus spreading outside of West Africa, where it has killed nearly 5,000 people in the worst outbreak on record.
    But here has been a growing chorus of critics, including public health experts, the United Nations, medical charities and even the White House, denouncing mandatory quarantines as scientifically unjustified and an obstacle to fighting the disease at its source in West Africa.
    "Now it's really important to balance any measure between what's perceived as protecting a population and the risk of stigmatisation. We desperately need international health workers, we keep calling for health workers, they are really the key to this response and these people should not be treated, when coming home, in a way that they would be stigmatised by the rest of the population," Jasarevic said.
    Jasarevic also said health workers are monitoring 82 people who had contact with a toddler who died of Ebola in Mali last week, but no new cases of the disease have yet been reported.
    Mali became the sixth West African country to report a case of the disease, and health officials want to try to contain the virus before it can spread out of control.
    It has already killed some 5,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, but Senegal and Nigeria both stopped the virus in its tracks by tracking down hundreds of people who had contact with the person who first brought it into their country and monitoring them constantly for symptoms.
    Three WHO officials are already in the country, having travelled to Mali a week ago to test its Ebola preparedness, and five more are arriving, Jasarevic said.
    "We take this very seriously because what example of Senegal has shown is that if there is timely and decisive action on contact tracing, it is possible to avoid further spread. We need really to help national health authorities, training has already started for contact tracers," he said.
    Meanwhile, food prices have risen by an average of 24 percent across the three countries worst hit by the Ebola outbreak, the World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday, as aid workers scrambled to distribute emergency rations to the hungry.
    The food-producing regions of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa have been severely affected by the worst outbreak on record of the viral haemorrhagic fever that has killed 4,546 across the three countries.
    In the Liberian capital Monrovia, prices of cassava and imported rice, the main staple food, have jumped by 30 percent.
    "In Sierra Leone local weekly markets have been banned, in Monrovia, Liberia, the price of cassava flour more than doubled after the closure of the border with Sierra Leone where the commodity is produced. So far, impacts on food prices have been mixed. In Liberia, prices for imported rice have continued to increase beyond their seasonal pattern, in some areas, we see food prices dropping, for example potatoes in Guinea," said WFP spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs.
    Byrs said last week WFP was carrying out a food security survey remotely using mobile phones to check the impact of the crisis on 2,400 families across the three worst affected nations and that a continued outbreak would lead to further food shortages.
    "Should the Ebola epidemic last another four to five months when farmers begin to prepare their land, there is a real concern that planting for 2015 harvest could be affected. The impact of Ebola is likely to limit food access in affected communities for months to come," she said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register