A 37-year-old man from the United Kingdom has become the first person in the world to receive an experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus, marking the start of human trials for a new jab developed by scientists at the University of Oxford in response to the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ed Hunt received the vaccine in Oxford, where researchers designed it in just eight weeks using the same technology that was used to develop one of the UK's Covid-19 vaccines. He is the first of 50 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 55 who will take part in the early-stage clinical trial.
Hunt said he decided to volunteer after following reports of the deadly Ebola outbreak in DR Congo and wanted to play a role in efforts to fight the disease.
"I had wanted to volunteer for the Covid vaccine trial but was unable to because of work commitments. After seeing news from DR Congo I thought I'd like to do my bit."
The new vaccine is based on the same platform that was used to create the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, which was administered to hundreds of millions of people during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Oxford research team, years of work on vaccine technology made it possible to produce the Ebola vaccine in a matter of weeks.
Prof Teresa Lambe, who led the Ebola vaccine team at the University of Oxford, said the first phase of the trial is focused on confirming the vaccine's safety and determining whether it triggers a strong immune response that could help protect against the Bundibugyo strain of the virus.
She stressed that volunteers would not be exposed to Ebola during the study.
"We will not be giving anybody Ebola in this trial or any trial.
"The aim of the phase one clinical study is to look for the safety of the vaccine, and also to see if we're getting a strong immune response that could be protective against the Bundibugyo species of Ebola."
Researchers said four vaccines are currently being developed against the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which is responsible for the current outbreak, but the Oxford vaccine is the first to reach human testing.
Although there is already an approved vaccine for the Zaire strain of Ebola, scientists say it does not provide protection against the Bundibugyo strain, making the development of a new vaccine necessary.
The Oxford team said another small vaccine trial is expected to begin soon in Uganda before a larger study is carried out in DR Congo to assess how well the vaccine protects people in areas affected by the disease.
The Serum Institute in India has already produced 600,000 doses of the Oxford Ebola vaccine, allowing supplies to be available quickly if the clinical trials prove successful.
More than 2,500 confirmed Ebola cases have been recorded in DR Congo so far, with the outbreak claiming just over 1,000 lives.