 |
|
Ruth Atkins is the
first person to be tested with the new Ebola vaccine in the UK. A former NHS nurse has become the first Briton to test
a potentially life-saving new vaccine to tackle the deadly Ebola virus in West
Africa. Ruth Atkins was injected with
the experimental drug, called Chimp Adenovirus type 3 (ChAd3), which has so far
only been trialled in primates, this morning. Credit:
Steve Parsons/PA Wire
|
Britain’s
trial of an experimental vaccine against Ebola has begun in Oxford with the
first healthy volunteer receiving the vaccine, Financial Times/ITV report.
Ruth
Atkins, 48, was injected with the candidate Ebola vaccine on Wednesday after a
clinical assessment. She was the first of 60 volunteers to participate in the
trial.
“I volunteered because the situation in West
Africa is so tragic and I thought being part of this vaccination process was
something small I could do to hopefully make a huge impact,” said Ms Atkins, a
former nurse and now an NHS communications manager.
Speaking
an hour after the vaccination, she said: “I feel absolutely fine, it felt no
different to being vaccinated before going on holiday. I did not realise until
today how many people behind the scenes have worked extra and unsociable hours
to get this to trial so quickly,” she added.
The
candidate vaccine against the Zaire species of Ebola circulating in West Africa
has been co-developed by the US National Institutes of Health and
GlaxoSmithKline. It uses an Ebola viral protein to generate an immune response,
but does not contain infectious material, so it cannot transmit the disease to
people who are vaccinated.
 |
Ruth
said “I volunteered because the situation in West Africa is so tragic and I thought
being part of this vaccination process was something small I could do to
hopefully make a huge impact,” Credit: Steve Parsons/PA Wire
|
The
trial at the University of Oxford is part of a series of safety tests of
potential Ebola vaccines. They have been fast-tracked in response to the
outbreak in West Africa, which has killed more than 2,450 people, according to
the World Health Organisation.
Ian
Hudson, chief executive of the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory
Agency, said: “Given the importance of Ebola as a risk to public health in some
countries in Africa, we fast-tracked the review of the clinical trial
application for this vaccine so that it was assessed and authorised by the
MHRA’s experts in just four working days.”
“These
are initial safety trials of the vaccine and it will be some time before we
know whether the vaccine could protect people against Ebola,” added Adrian
Hill, director of Oxford’s Jenner Institute. “But we are optimistic that the
candidate vaccine may prove useful against the disease in the future.”
Professor Adrian Hill, who is leading
the trial at the university's Jenner Institute, hailed it as a "very
important step" in bringing the disease, which has so far killed more than
2,250 people, under control.
He said: "This vaccine has
never been given to a person before so it's a very important step in fighting
the outbreak of Ebola.
"If everything works well over
the coming months we will hopefully be using this for health care workers by
the end of the year."
Animal
research by the NIH and Okairos, a biotechnology company acquired last year by
GSK, indicated that the vaccine protects monkeys exposed to Ebola without
significant adverse effects. The NIH is testing the same vaccine in the US, in
addition to a related vaccine designed to protect against two Ebola species.
Trials
with healthy volunteers are required to confirm that the vaccine does not cause
unforeseen problems and that it generates a good immune response in humans. The
aim is to finish these this year.
GSK will manufacture about
10,000 additional doses of the vaccine while the initial clinical trials are in
progress, so that if they are successful stocks can be made available
immediately to the WHO to immunise health workers who are at high risk of
infection.
No comments:
Post a Comment