Lack of Ebola Cases Shifts Vaccine Trials Away From Liberia

TIME MAGAZINE  by Alexandra Sifferlin                                                                        March 13, 2015

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) may relocate its clinical trials of Ebola vaccines to Guinea, since there are no longer enough Ebola cases in Liberia for a proper efficacy trial.

On Feb. 2, the NIH launched an initial safety trial for two vaccines to protect against Ebola in Liberia. The plan was to test 600 people for overall safety and then launch a second phase of the trial in 27,000 people to see whether or not the vaccine prevents infection with Ebola virus compared to a placebo.

The safety test was successfully completed the week of March 9—but around the same time, Liberia announced that it had released its last confirmed patient from its Ebola treatment centers. ...

Now that Ebola is not the risk it was to Liberia several months ago, the trial is unlikely to continue according to the original plan. “It doesn’t make sense to expand the study in Liberia when there are fortunately no new infections occurring,” says Dr. H. Clifford Lane, the deputy director for clinical research and special projects at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases....

Lane says the NIH is now in discussions with other countries, predominantly Guinea, to move the second part of the trial.

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http://time.com/3743945/ebola-vaccine-trials/