Less than one year after Janssen announced its accelerated commitment to research and development to find an Ebola vaccine, the first volunteers in affected West African lands have received their first dose.

We’ve started the first clinical trials in Sierra Leone, where the most recent Ebola cases have occurred. Researchers are testing to see whether or not the preventive combination vaccine is safe and whether or not it strengthens the immune system sufficiently. Volunteers are given a combination of two vaccine components. One has been developed by our associate company Crucell Holland and the other by our Danish biotech partner Bavarian Nordic.

First of all, they are given the Janssen vaccine to prepare their immune system. Two months later, the Danish component follows, which stimulates the reaction of the immune system, and this might extend the duration of the vaccine protection. Click here for the full press release.

Long-term protection

The clinical trial is running parallel with other first and second phase studies in Europe, the United States, and Africa. Professor Peter Piot, Principal of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is also working on the study. ‘We urgently need a vaccine which provides long-term protection for the population and care workers,’ says Piot.

Today, we still don’t have an approved treatment or vaccine against Ebola. The epidemic broke out in West Africa in March 2014. Since then, 28,457 people are known to have contracted the disease, almost all of them in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. According to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the disease has claimed the lives of 11,312 people.