Ebola vaccine could take nine months as death toll rises further, WHO warns

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GENEVA: Health workers fighting a severe Ebola outbreak cannot rely on immediate medical treatments to halt the expanding crisis. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that a viable vaccine targeting the rare Bundibugyo strain, the specific virus driving current infections, is still six to nine months away from production.

This specific variant creates a critical security gap: existing, highly successful Ebola vaccine stockpiles were designed entirely for the common Zaire strain and offer no cross-protection against the Bundibugyo strain.

While two candidate vaccines are currently being developed, both remain completely untested in human clinical trials, says the WHO. Without ready doses or clinical safety data, frontline medical teams are left entirely empty-handed as suspected cases surge past 600 in the Democratic

Republic of Congo and Uganda, claiming 139 lives. Traditional, non-pharmaceutical containment methods like strict isolation and contact tracing are the only remaining defences against the spreading virus.