UK volunteer receives experimental Ebola vaccine

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Ed Hunt, a 37-year-old UK man, became the first volunteer to receive an experimental Ebola vaccine in Oxford, where scientists developed the candidate in just eight weeks. The vaccine uses the same technology as the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid jab that was given to hundreds of millions during the pandemic. Hunt is the first of 50 healthy volunteers aged 18–55 being recruited for the trial, which aims to assess safety and early immune responses. The trial’s start matters because repurposing Covid vaccine technology could speed Ebola vaccine development and inform responses to outbreaks such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

First volunteer received experimental Ebola vaccine using Oxford Covid technology