As of Tuesday, Congo’s Ebola outbreak has claimed at least 2,000 lives, according to the Associated Press, making it the fastest growing on record, with the government reporting 4,381 confirmed cases and 2,011 deaths. In Canada, the government has approved a clinical trial for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus. “This particular strain, there’s no vaccine that protects against it. We have a vaccine that works very well against the Zaire strain, which had caused the outbreaks 10 years ago,” said Dr. Scott Halperin, the director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology. “Large outbreaks in West Africa, but not against this Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola. “This is a vaccine that’s being developed by an mRNA vaccine against this strain of Ebola, which hopefully can be ready to be used in order to help bring this outbreak to an end and control it. We have partnered with Moderna to do clinical trials for several of their vaccines, starting with COVID and against other infectious diseases that they’re making vaccines against. “They have a good working relationship with us. They trust us, they know that we do good work. And in something like this, where they need to do things very efficiently because there’s an urgency to get the vaccine there.” Three sites – two in Nova Scotia and one in Toronto – will see 80 participants in the clinical trial. “That’s the first study that’s done in a vaccine. And the main reason to do a phase one study, the main focus is on safety,” said Halperin. “How well the vaccine is tolerated. It’s done in small numbers of people. And they are healthy young adults and these people, in a very careful way, are given a dose of the vaccine and are monitored very closely. “It’s done in a phased manner. So first a small number of people are done. A few would call sentinels. And if they tolerated well then the rest of that cohort is done. And then the next group is tested after that.” It began last week in Truro, N.S., and moves to Halifax this week. “This vaccine was approved for the clinical trial very quickly by the regulatory authorities in Canada. Our ethics boards at the IWK was very efficient in expediting the review of this so it could be started and the universities were quick and making the agreements to get that all done,” he said. “Everybody is working at record speed to make sure this happens. It has to move to Africa. So ultimately studies are going to be moving to Africa.” The hope is that they will move by mid-fall, especially as health authorities struggle to reach remote areas due to rebel conflict, bad roads and work stoppages over payment issues. The outbreak was declared on May 15 and it’s the second largest in history, behind the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak. “The problem in Central Africa is that it was not gotten on top of early enough because of where it started. It started in an area that’s difficult to reach where there’s political conflict,” said Halperin. “The health authorities couldn’t get on top of it enough. And that’s where the vaccine is going to be very helpful. “The strain has been known for decades and has caused very small outbreaks in the past, which were easy to contain. The fact that this wasn’t contained isn’t because the virus is more virulent, or it’s changed in any way. It’s because of the political situation that we weren’t able to contain it, and we weren’t able to identify it earlier, and it was spreading unbeknownst to the health authorities in those areas.” Janice Graham, a professor of pediatrics, infectious diseases and medical anthropology at Dalhousie University, agreed. “It’s really about capacity, public health capacity. I would have hoped that from the lessons learned from Ebola back, in 2013, 2014, 2015, that we would have been able to build capacity across Africa, all countries and regions of Africa,” she said. “But sort of rampant warfare and unrest can kind of pivot off into the best made plans of a clinical trial go awry when you can’t do it safely.” According to both Halperin and Graham, Canada has always had ties to Ebola research. “I was on the scientific advisory committee for the Ebola Zaire strain vaccine with the WHO and Guinea, which was the country that was most affected,” said Graham. “At that time we had other sorts of things going on. And since then, a lot of countries like Canada, and certainly our Canadian Center for Vaccinology here in Halifax, have gained incredible experience working on the Ebola vaccines. And so I can understand that Moderna would come to Scott and take that to take this on.” “There is a moral responsibility for countries that can do, do. Canada’s had always had a very great interest in Ebola. The Zaire strain, the vaccine was a Canadian technology,” said Halperin. “The vaccine that was used 10 years ago to control the West African outbreak, that vaccine was developed and discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada.” “I think that countries like Canada…we have excellent, excellent research capabilities and capacities, and we’re leaders in vaccine research,” said Graham. “And certainly, we are here in Nova Scotia and at sites across Canada. I think we have a responsibility to participate as best as we can in any research, and especially with the research that we can best contribute to.” “This vaccine is interesting because the likelihood is we’ll never use it in Canada,” said Halperin. “We don’t expect to have, as opposed to, for example, the COVID pandemic where it started one place and it’s spread. That’s not the way that Ebola works. Ebola needs contact with infected body fluids, so it’s not going to be something that is spread all over the world.” For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
