New Ebola trial vaccine by Chinese researchers safe: Lancet

Results from an early trial of an Ebola vaccine developed by Chinese researchers indicate it is safe, according to a paper published in The Lancet medical journal.

The findings suggest the high-dose vaccine is safe and "robustly immunogenic," its developers said Wednesday in the journal, adding that one shot of the high-dose vaccine could mount a "glycoprotein-specific humoral and T-cell response" against the Ebola virus in 14 days.

The vaccine is the first based on the Ebola virus strain responsible for the west African outbreak. Until now, all tested Ebola vaccines were based on a virus strain from the Zaire outbreak of 1976.

The vaccine was jointly developed by the biotechnology institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology.

A team of Chinese researchers, led by Zhu Fengcai with the disease prevention and control center in Jiangsu Province, tested the vaccine's safety in 120 individuals from the province.

The test subjects were randomly assigned a placebo, or a low or high dose of the vaccine.

"No serious adverse events" were reported during the trial, the researchers said, adding the most common reaction was mild pain at the injection site.

According to the study, the new trial vaccine is stable and much easier to store or transport in tropical areas with inadequate cold-chain capacity, such as west Africa.

The deadly Ebola virus has killed more than 10,000 people in west Africa out of nearly 25,000 infected since the start of 2014, and no licensed vaccine against the virus is available yet.