Chinese researchers in Beijing have said the result from an early trial of an Ebola vaccine developed in China indicated that the vaccine is safe.
The vaccine was jointly developed by the biotechnology institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology.
bolaA paper published in the Lancet Medical Journal said a team of Chinese researchers tested the vaccine’s safety on 120 people from Jiangsu Province.
The team, which is from the Disease Prevention and Control Centre in the province, was led by Zhu Fengcai.
The reported quoted the researchers as saying that no serious adverse effects were reported during the trial, adding that the most common reaction was mild pain at the injection site.
“The findings suggest the high-dose vaccine is safe and “robustly immunogenic.
“One shot of the high-dose vaccine could mount a glycoprotein-specific humoral and T-cell response against the Ebola virus in 14 days,’’ its developers said.
The journal explained that the vaccine was the first based on the Ebola virus strain responsible for the West African outbreak.
It said until now, all tested Ebola vaccines were based on a virus strain from the Zaire outbreak of 1976.
The publication indicated that the new trial vaccine was stable and easier to store or transport in tropical areas such as West Africa with inadequate cold-chain capacity.
The deadly Ebola virus has killed more than 10,000 people in west Africa since the start of 2014 and no licensed vaccine against the virus was available yet.
