WHO approves trials of two new Ebola vaccines in DR Congo
The UN health agency's approval clears testing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Africanews reports an outbreak has killed more than 5,300 people.
The World Health Organization has approved clinical trials for two new Ebola vaccines, Al Jazeera reported, with the testing to be carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Africanews reported that the approval was given on Wednesday and that the trials come as doctors try to bring an outbreak under control. The outlet put the death toll from that outbreak at more than 5,300 people.
NHK World reported that the trials of the two vaccines will begin in DR Congo. The broadcaster gave no start date, no list of trial sites and no details of who makes the vaccines.
Al Jazeera's headline carried the approval alone, without a location or a toll.
The WHO is the United Nations agency that coordinates the international response to disease outbreaks and sets the standards governments use when they authorise medical products. Approval of a trial protocol is a step before a vaccine can be offered outside research settings, and it is not the same as licensing a product for general use.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of people who are infected or who have died of the disease, which puts health workers and family caregivers at particular risk.
None of the reports named the two vaccines, the companies or research groups that developed them, the provinces of DR Congo where the trials will run, or how many volunteers will take part.
None broke down the 5,300 deaths by province, by month or by whether the dead were confirmed Ebola cases or suspected ones.
How the reports differ
Africanews was alone among the three in putting a number on the outbreak, saying it has killed more than 5,300 people, and it dated the WHO's approval to Wednesday. NHK World led on where the testing will happen, naming the Democratic Republic of Congo in its headline, a location Al Jazeera's headline did not carry. Al Jazeera reported the approval itself with no toll and no trial location. Two other items returned with this story, one on clinical trial regulation in Brazil and one on university rankings in Asia, and neither concerned the Ebola outbreak.
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