World Vision to play major role in Ebola vaccine trial

World Vision will play a major role in the trial of an Ebola vaccine due to begin in West Africa in May.

World Vision will equip faith and community leaders, police and health workers to promote acceptance of the new prime-boost vaccine. It will train facilitators to disseminate accurate medical information about Ebola while helping combat widespread fear and stigma surrounding the disease. The approach is modelled on World Vision’s Channels of Hope initiative, which is already empowering faith leaders to educate their congregations about Ebola in West Africa.

Magnus Conteh, health coordinator-WV Ireland, said there is a concern that the stigma surrounding Ebola, coupled with suspicion of vaccines in general, may deter people from getting vaccinated.

“We will work with the communities who know and trust us to develop plans and spread accurate information,” he said. 

World Vision will also ensure that all ethical, data privacy and regulatory requirements are complied with in each country where the trial takes place.

The initiative is part of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Ebola+ programme designed to accelerate all aspects of vaccine development, manufacturing and deployment. World Vision will work specifically on the Ebola Vaccine Deployment Acceptance and Compliance project (EBODAC) alongside Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the Grameen Foundation and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. World Vision will receive a substantial grant from IMI to fund its contribution to the project.

The Ebola+ programme will include technology to send messages to mobile phones to remind people who received the initial vaccine to return to get their booster dose. The technology will also facilitate the tracking of vaccination coverage. The mobile phone technology was developed especially for health programmes by Grameen Foundation in collaboration with World Vision. World Vision has used the technology since 2012 to successfully support community health programmes in Africa.  

A total of eight projects have been selected for the Ebola+ programme, which has a budget of €215 million.

The World Health Organisation estimates Ebola has killed more than 8,000 people across West Africa, and currently there is no vaccine proven to be effective against it. 

The prime-boost vaccine is being developed at Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company of Johnson & Johnson. Janssen, in partnership with Bavarian Nordic A/S, has so far produced more than 400,000 regimens of the prime-boost vaccine for use in large-scale clinical trials. 

By Partnership Communications