There are two vaccines that will be tested in this study: the cAd3EBO-Z vaccine that is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and rVSV-ZEBOV, manufactured by NewLink/Merck.
The Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccines in Liberia (Prevail) program comprises the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), specifically the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Liberian component of the program includes the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the Liberian Institute of Biomedical Research, the Liberian Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority and the National Research Institute Board.
The Clinical Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute for Health, Clifford Lane is one of the investigators of the study alongside two Liberians—Dr. Stephen B. Kennedy and Dr. Fatorma Bolay.
The first 600 trials of the vaccines will be held at the Redemption Hospital in the Monrovia neighborhood of New Kru Town, and other sites will be added in and out of the capital to meet the target of 27,000 volunteers.
Volunteers are to be recruited following a period of community awareness and mobilization. Only healthy people, 18 years old or above who are not pregnant and are not survivors of the disease themselves are eligible to take the trial vaccines.
There would be no pay for volunteers, however, a compensation package for missed work and transportation would be provided.
Each of the two vaccines contains a small harmless part of the Ebola virus, which allows the body to fight or to make an immune response to Ebola. Both vaccines can cause side effect in some people, including pain, redness, or swelling in the arm of the injection, fever, headaches, mouth sores, tiredness, muscle, joint pain and loss of appetite.
Vice President Joseph Boakai told the audience at the launching ceremony Sunday that the deployment of trial vaccines in Liberia marks the official beginning of mankind prevailing over the killer disease called Ebola. He said people of the Mano River Basin feel the urge to rise to the occasion and step up their fight against this disease because they have seen its cruelest devastation.
According to Deputy Health Minister Matthew Flomo, this exercise is the commencement of a long term engagement between Liberia and the United States for clinical research programs which will build Liberia’s capacity in advanced research and in combating other medical conditions.
“This collaboration formally launched here today has the potential to enhance the capacity of Liberians in clinical research, especially at the Liberian Institute of Biomedical Research.” Deputy Minister Flomo added.
Speaking at the launching ceremony Sunday, Dr. Lane said the vaccination program might address questions of critical importance to the health sector of Liberia and, by extension, the world by looking for ways of preventing and treating infectious diseases such as Ebola.
For his part, the head of Liberia’s Ebola Incidence Management System, Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah (Assistant Minister for Preventive Services at the Ministry of Health) declared the launch of the trial vaccines in Liberia as a historic moment in the long quest to end the spread of the killer disease. “Liberia has made history by accepting the vaccines trial….scientists are [now] at the verge of saving lives.”