WHO plans clinical trials for Ebola vaccine in Uganda as doctors face poor protection

Three trial vaccines for Ebola will arrive in Uganda next week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced during the G20 meeting in Indonesia, in an effort to stem the outbreak of the deadly disease that was declared in late September and that has since then claimed at least 55 deaths.

“Today I’m pleased to announce that the WHO committee of external experts, has evaluated three candidate vaccines and agreed that all three should be included in the planned trial in Uganda,” announced WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “WHO and Uganda’s minister of health have conceded and accepted the committee’s recommendation. We expect the first dose of vaccines to be shipped to Uganda next week.”

Two of the three trial vaccines were developed in the United Kingdom, the third trial vaccine comes from the United States.

Meanwhile, medical staff in Uganda are reported to be reluctant to work with infected patients in isolation units for fear of catching the deadly hemorrhagic fever, and also because of exhaustion and delayed wages. According to the remaining doctors, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to talk to media, 10 doctors immediately stepped forward to work in an isolation unit at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital when Ebola broke out in Uganda in September, but currently only three are left.

Two health workers at the hospital in western Uganda have died from Ebola in this outbreak. Nationwide, 15 health workers have tested positive and six have died. With total recorded cases having reached 141 and 55 dead, overall case numbers remain low compared with a 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa that killed at least 11,300 people.