KIGALI: Rwanda will start cinical trials of experimental vaccines and treatments for Marburg disease in the next few weeks, its health minister said on Thursday, to fight the country's first outbreak of the viral fever, which has so far killed 11 people.
The disease was detected in late September, with 36 cases reported so far, health ministry data shows.
"This is part of our efforts to help people recover quickly by utilising vaccines and medicines specifically developed to fight this outbreak, currently in the final phase of research," the minister, Sabin Nsanzimana, told Reuters.
"We are collaborating with the pharmaceutical companies that developed these, alongside the World Health Organization, to expedite the process through multilateral collaboration."
The WHO said it was working with the government and had held a meeting of industry, academic and government partners to speed up access to vaccine and treatment doses for trials.
It has given ethical approval for these types of trials during Marburg outbreaks, and said the next urgent step was a similar approval from the Rwandan authorities. The WHO has also released funding, alongside the Canadian government and the European Union's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), a spokesperson said by email.
Nsanzimana said the government was speaking to companies based in the US and Europe.
Four vaccine candidates have been evaluated for potential use in trials by WHO, but only one, made by the Sabin Vaccine Institute non-profit, has data from early-stage human trials showing it is safe and led to an immune response. Further testing of the vaccines outside of outbreak settings is not possible because of the risks involved.
There are also a number of treatments that could be trialled, including Gilead Science's remdesivir, an antiviral used during the pandemic to treat Covid-19 and originally developed to treat Ebola, which is related to Marburg. - Reuters
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