Uganda has kicked off a clinical trial of a vaccine against Ebola that killed one person in the outbreak declared last week.
Health workers and other people exposed to the strain are being targeted in the trial which began four days after Uganda announced the death of a nurse in the capital, Kampala. Two more cases were confirmed on Monday in relatives of the first victim.
It is the sixth time Uganda has been hit by an outbreak of the Sudan strain of the virus, for which there is no approved vaccine. Of the five other Ebola species, just one has licensed vaccines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that this vaccination trial was initiated with record speed.
The deadliest Ebola epidemic killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa between 2013 and 2016.
The WHO said a system for candidate vaccines was put in place during a previous outbreak of the Sudan Ebola virus in Uganda in 2022, paving the way for a trial during the next outbreak.
