Canada will donate a small quantity of an experimental Ebola vaccine developed in its government lab to the WHO for use in Africa, Canadian Minister of Health Rona Ambrose said on Tuesday, as a third fatality in Nigeria stoked fears that the worst outbreak of the virus ever recorded is spreading further.
The decision to donate the vaccine came after the UN health agency said it was ethical to offer untested drugs to patients.
The Canadian government will donate between 800 and 1,000 doses of the vaccine, with the final number dependent on how much it holds back for research and clinical trials. Ottawa will also keep a small supply in case it is needed domestically.
Photo: EPA
Ambrose said she offered the vaccine to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍).
The US is also working on a vaccine and the WHO and governments involved were discussing possible use in Africa, Greg Taylor, deputy chief public health officer of Canada’s Public Health Agency told Reuters in an interview ahead of Ottawa’s announcement.
Canada only has about 1,500 animal doses of the vaccine, which it invented a few years ago, and would need four to six months to make a large batch, he said.
The government vaccine is separate from a treatment being developed by Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp.
“We see this as a global resource, something we need to put on the global table to say ... how can we make best use of this asset? We’re looking to do that as fast as we can,” Taylor said from Ottawa.
The Ebola outbreak is the world’s largest and deadliest yet, having killed 1,013 people so far, the vast majority in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The government vaccine, which the Canadian agency licensed for commercialization to US firm BioProtection Systems, a unit of Newlink Genetics, has proven effective in animals, but has never been tested on humans, Taylor said.
Last week, Iowa-based NewLink said BioProtection had a contract with the US Department of Defense for studies to bring the Canadian vaccine closer to human testing.
“We’ve been trying to figure out how we can make a contribution in the fight against this disease and get our vaccine into the clinic,” Brian Wiley, NewLink vice president of business development, told Reuters on Tuesday. “A large amount of work still needs to be done, but when there is a dire need the powers that be move at a quicker pace.”
Taylor did not specify which of several US vaccines in development he was referring to.
Profectus BioSciences of Tarrytown, New York, has tested its Ebola vaccine in monkeys with good results, chief science officer John Eldridge said on Tuesday.
Still, deciding whether to use an experimental drug on humans is “very difficult,” Taylor said.
“You really don’t know how safe it is, you don’t know what the side effects are going to be, but in this extraordinary circumstance in Africa right now, we’re trying to do everything we can to assist,” he said.
The first doses in Africa would likely be available to healthcare workers, Taylor said.
The Public Health Agency was also involved in the development of ZMapp, an experimental Ebola treatment licensed by US firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical that has been used to treat two infected US aid workers.
Liberia said on Tuesday it will get Mapp’s drug to treat two doctors.
In Nigeria, a member of West African regional body ECOWAS became the third person in the country to die of Ebola, the bloc said yesterday.
Jatto Asihu Abdulqudir, 36, a protocol assistant, was traveling to an ECOWAS function with Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought the virus to Nigeria last month. Abdulqudir had been under quarantine.
The country has reported eight cases of Ebola since Sawyer arrived in Lagos on July 20.
On Nigeria’s social media, a claim that eating bitter kola nuts and another that drinking salt water can prevent Ebola have gone viral and the Vanguard newspaper reported this week that two people had died drinking salt water in Jos city.
That would make misinformation about the disease in Nigeria so far almost as deadly as Ebola itself.
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