HEALTH-EBOLA/VACCINES-WHO UPDATE Ebola vaccine trials to begin in affected countries as early as December 2014, WHO says

Record ID: 836891

  • Title: HEALTH-EBOLA/VACCINES-WHO UPDATE Ebola vaccine trials to begin in affected countries as early as December 2014, WHO says
  • Date: 24th October 2014
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (OCTOBER 24, 2014) (REUTERS) WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION HEADQUARTERS WHO FLAG VARIOUS OF WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, AT NEWS BRIEFING JOURNALIST (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, SAYING: "All is put in place by all partners to start efficacy trials in affected countries in December, as early as in December 2014. Of course, the protocol will be adapted to take into consideration safety and immunogenicity results of the phase one trial as they become available." KIENY AT NEWS BRIEFING JOURNALIST (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, SAYING: "The pharmaceutical companies developing these vaccines, as well as the ones which are a little bit longer in the development path, are committing to ramping up the production capacities to millions of doses to be available in 2015 with hundreds thousands ready in the first half of next year." JOURNALIST (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, SAYING: "Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready, they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide of this epidemic." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, SAYING: "Certainly health care workers remain one of the categories - and the front-line workers, also indeed with burial teams - one of the priority for testing and so, these would be the targets either in one of the two clinical trial designs that we have seen yesterday." HANDS TYPING ON KEYBOARD / JOURNALIST (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, SAYING: "I haven't seen the money, nor did we discuss precise figures, but the general understanding is that this will not be a hurdle to the deployment of vaccines." CAMERAMAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF HEALTH SYSTEMS AND INNOVATION, MARIE-PAULE KIENY, SAYING: "While we hope that the massive response which is being put in place now will have an impact on the epidemic, it is still prudent to prepare and to have as much vaccine available potentially, would they be proven to be safe and effective again. I would like to point out that at this point these are candidate vaccines, they are not proven vaccines and they may, one of them, or more, or both, may prove in the end not to be usable either because they are not safe enough, or because they are not effective enough, so let's be clear that these are still candidate vaccines." VARIOUS OF WHO HEADQUARTERS
  • Embargoed: 8th November 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Switzerland
  • City:
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA95Y0BA2RRZHZMBF8JRZBRPC2O
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: The World Health Organization (WHO) set out plans on Friday for speeding up development and deployment of experimental Ebola vaccines, saying hundreds of thousands of doses should be ready for use in West Africa by the middle of 2015.
    The Geneva-based United Nations health agency confirmed that two leading vaccine candidates are in human clinical trials, and said another five experimental vaccines were also being developed and would begin clinical trials next year.
    "All is put in place by all partners to start efficacy trials in affected countries in December, as early as in December 2014," the WHO's Marie-Paule Kieny told reporters after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.
    "The pharmaceutical companies developing these vaccines, as well as the ones which are a little bit longer in the development path, are committing to ramping up the production capacities to millions of doses to be available in 2015 with hundreds thousands ready in the first half of next year," she added.
    Researchers are testing two candidate vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics.
    Kieny said at least five vaccines are following closely and will be in the clinic in the first months of 2015. Among those is a potential shot from Johnson & Johnson, which is set to enter human trials in January.
    Mali on Thursday (October 23) became the sixth West African country to have a confirmed Ebola case in the worst outbreak on record of the hemorrhagic fever. The epidemic has killed almost 4,900 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
    "Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready, they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide of this epidemic," Kieny, the WHO's assistant director general for health systems and innovation, told reporters.
    Experts aim to conduct a range of different clinical trials in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to produce the first efficacy data by around April, she said. Plans are most advanced for Liberia, where two different Ebola vaccines would be compared against a control, or placebo, vaccine.
    If data from accelerated safety trials in human volunteers suggests they are safe to deploy, the plan is that several thousand doses will be given to high risk groups such as frontline health workers in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia by early next year.
    "Certainly health care workers remain one of the categories - and the front-line workers also indeed with burial teams - one of the priority for testing and so, these would be the targets either in one of the two clinical trial designs that we have seen yesterday," Kieny said.
    Kieny said there was a lot of discussion during the meeting about financing, with a number of entities including the World Bank and the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) making commitments to help fund Ebola vaccine trials, distribution and deployment.
    Drugmakers had also pledged to ensure any shots they do develop would be priced at an affordable level.
    "I haven't seen the money, nor did we discuss precise figures, but the general understanding is that this will not be a hurdle to the deployment of vaccines," Kieny said.
    Drugmakers have said they are ready to work together to speed up the development and production of Ebola vaccines. But the process was still in the testing stages, Kieny said.
    "While we hope that the massive response which is being put in place now will have an impact on the epidemic, it is still prudent to prepare and to have as much vaccine available potentially, would they be proven to be safe and effective again," she said.
    "I would like to point out that at this point these are candidate vaccines, they are not proven vaccines and they may, one of them, or more, or both, may prove in the end not to be usable either because they are not safe enough, or because they are not effective enough, so let's be clear that these are still candidate vaccines," she added.
    Rolling out a mass immunisation program would not happen until much later, when vaccine production has been ramped up.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register