A report published in the medical journal The Lancet just yesterday details the outcome of a clinical trial that was carried out to assess the safety and effectiveness of a new Ebola vaccine.

The vaccine, tested by a team of scientists led by researcher Fengcai Zhu with the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control in China, was shown to trigger an immune response when introduced in the body.

There were no instances of severe side effects among the volunteers included in this clinical trial, at least not during the 28 days that the study participants were monitored following inoculation.

How the clinical trial played out

The Ebola vaccine tested in the clinical trial carried out by medical expert Fengcai Zhu and colleagues was administered to a total of 80 volunteers. Of these people, 40 received a low dose and the remaining a high one. Another 40 volunteers were administered a placebo and served as a control group.

The study participants' response to the vaccine was assessed 28 days following administration, when the 80 volunteers who received either a low or a high dose were found to have had a positive immune response to it in that their bodies packed more antibodies.

According to Fengcai Zhu and fellow researchers, it was the study participants administered a high dose of the vaccine that had the best immune response. As for the volunteers in the control group, no increase in the number of antibodies in their body was documented.

“On the basis of our findings, we believe that the Ebola vaccine we assessed has some potential,” specialist Fengcai Zhu commented on the outcome of this series of experiments in an interview with the press, as cited by Science Daily.

As mentioned, no severe side effects to the Ebola vaccine were reported during the 28 days that the study participants were monitored. Still, some volunteers complained about pain and redness at the injection site, and others accused mild fever and vomiting.

Further research is needed

Having completed this clinical trial, Fengcai Zhu and his team know that the experimental Ebola vaccine, developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and the Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology, triggers an immune response while at the same time failing to cause serious side effects.

However, they are yet to determine whether the excess antibodies that the study participants produced in response to being given the vaccine can, in fact, tackle the Ebola virus and keep it from spreading uncontrollably in the human body. Simply put, further research is needed.

It's important to note that, unlike the other Ebola vaccines that have until now been developed and tested, the one that the researchers in China used in their trial was based on the virus strain that caused the latest epidemic in West Africa and not the virus strain responsible for the 1976 Zaire outbreak.