MONROVIA, February 9 (LINA) – An official of the team conducting the clinical trials of two Ebola vaccines has said no payment has been made to any volunteer in the project. 

 
“We are not paying any Liberian a dime for volunteering to take the Anti-Ebola Trial Vaccination,” the co-investigator of the Ebola vaccine trial Stephen Kennedy has clarified.
 
“This initiative represents an important entry of Liberia into the global clinical research and an enduring symbol of strong ties existing between Liberia and the United States and as such, we do not engage into coercion practices,” he said.
 
In recent times, it has been widely publicized in the media that persons volunteering for the ongoing clinical trial were receiving US$70 as a way of coercing them to be vaccinated.
 
Kennedy made the clarification Monday at the Information Ministry daily Ebola briefing in response to concerns raised by some media personnel on the recent coercion report.
 
“In fact, the vaccines are not offered to just anyone, but volunteers who have been thoroughly investigated by the research ethics board following a detailed explanation to them on the purpose of the study, side effects, or discomforts,” he explained.
 
Kennedy further explained that all the participants would also sign a consent form before any study procedure or vaccination is performed.

The Ebola vaccine trials are the result of a request from the Liberian Health Ministry to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services to form a joint clinical trial of the vaccines ChAd3-ZEBOV and rVSV-ZEBOV  to accelerate the development of  Ebola prevention medication.
LINA