Ebola: industry leaders meet to discuss vaccine trials, as UN agencies continue aid push

24 October 2014 – The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has convened a meeting with top Government officials from Ebola-affected countries, regulatory agencies, vaccine manufacturers and funding agencies to discuss and agree how best to best fast-track testing and the deployment of vaccines in sufficient numbers to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

WHO said today that these vaccines are expected to have a major impact on further evolution of the epidemic, with trials already underway in the United States and soon to begin in Africa, Germany and Switzerland to determine safety, dosing and efficacy.

Participants at yesterday’s meeting agreed that the results from phase 1 clinical trials of most advanced vaccines are expected to be available in December 2014. Efficacy trials in accepted countries also will begin in this timeframe.

“As a group, we are accelerating in a matter of weeks a process that typically takes years, ensuring that safety and effectiveness remain the top priorities with production speed and capacity a close third,” says Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director general of health systems and innovation.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies developing the vaccines committed to ramp up production capacity for millions of doses to be available in 2015, with 100,000 ready in the first half of the year. Regulatory authorities in countries where the vaccines are manufactured and in Africa are under extremely short deadlines to have vaccines approved.

Community engagement is also vital and work should be scaled up urgently in partnership between local communities, national governments, nongovernmental organizations and international organizations, WHO said.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva this morning, Mr. Fadéla Chaib, also for the WHO, confirmed the first Ebola case in Mali.

A two-year old girl fell sick on 20 October in Kayes, 600 km away from Bamako. Mr. Chaib said the little girl has since been transferred to a hospital after her treatment in a paediatric centre on 21 October. She had been had been travelling with her grandmother to Guinea.

Local authorities have identified 43 persons who had been in contact with the little girl and her grandmother, including 10 health care personnel who had taken care of the girl in the paediatric centre before her transfer to the hospital. Those contacts were under control and the paediatric centre had been disinfected.

On 19 October, WHO deployed a team to Mali and Côte d’Ivoire in order to prevent the spread of Ebola in the neighbouring countries. In the next 24 hours, WHO will send reinforcements to its team on the ground to help strengthen the local health care system.

Several other UN agencies and partners continue to deliver much-need assistance to the affected countries, including United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) who with its flights scheduled to arrive in Monrovia today and on 27 October, is delivering 5,976 Ebola protection kits - buckets, soap, gloves and garbage bags, as well as pharmaceuticals items.

UNICEF also increased its stock of body bags, bringing the number to 20,000 for adults and nearly 5,000 for children.

Also speaking to reporters in Geneva, a UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson noted that if the Ebola epidemic lasts another 4-5 months, the 2015 harvest in the affected countries will be affected.

Elisabeth Byrs said that in October, WFP in Guinea distributed supplies to 186,000 people in areas of widespread and intense transmission across the country. The previous week in Liberia, WFP had distributed 2,430 metric tons of food to about 144,600 people in eight counties. WFP had also increased its October distribution target in the country by 35 percent and aimed to reach 270,000 people this month.

In Sierra Leone, WFP had started constructing Forward Logistics Bases in Port Loko, Makeni and Kenema. The required equipment for the establishment of the bases had arrived in the country.

More funds are urgently needed, however, to keep the assistance coming. Ms. Byrs specified that the WFP’s current Emergency Operation had a total requirement of almost $93 million with a funding shortfall of 48 per cent.

For its Special Logistics Operation, WFP still required 87 percent of the $87 million. Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), specified that out of the total requested $988 million needed for the overall Ebola response, $488 million had been provided thus far.

Meanwhile at Headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hosted a global Town Hall this morning to brief staff members on measures being taken to protect them from Ebola.

The UN chief stressed that the UN has an obligation to the affected countries to end the epidemic and, at the same time, an obligation to protect its personnel.

The UN message must be based on facts and evidence conveying a sense of urgency without inciting panic, Mr. Ban stressed.