Uganda begins Ebola vaccine trial after new outbreak kills a nurse and infects 2 other people Ugandan authorities on Monday began a clinical trial of a vaccine against the Sudan strain of Ebola that has killed one person in the outbreak declared last week.
A trial vaccine known as rVSV-ZEBOV, used to vaccinate 3,000 people at risk of infection during an outbreak of the Zaire strain of Ebola in eastern Congo between 2018 and 2020, proved effective in containing the spread of the disease there.
This is the first Ebola outbreak since the Trump administration's decision last week to withdraw from the U.N. health agency, and since Trump's order for a freeze on foreign assistance.
Health workers and others exposed to the Ebola strain are being targeted in the study, which began four days after Uganda announced the death of a nurse in the capital, Kampala.
Scientists don’t know the natural reservoir of Ebola, but they suspect the first person infected in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat.
