Follow-Up: WHO Expert Groups Recommend Adding Two Bundibugyo Vaccine Candidates to Ebola Trial in DR Congo
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced at a media briefing in Geneva on November 4, 2026, that WHO expert groups are recommending adding two vaccine candidates developed specifically for Bundibugyo virus to the ongoing Ebola vaccine trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: ChAdOx1 BDBV, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India, and Moderna's mRNA-1469.
More than 10,000 cases and 5,000 deaths have been reported in the DRC in this Ebola epidemic; Kenya has reported nine cases including two deaths, and one case has been confirmed in Nigeria. The trial, begun last month, uses the Ervebo vaccine, which is approved for Ebola virus but not for Bundibugyo virus, and is led by the DRC's National Institute for Biomedical Research with support from WHO and other partners. The DRC is also seeing its worst cholera outbreak in decades, with more than 60,000 cases and 1,800 deaths this year.
Tedros said vaccines are powerful tools but not substitutes for early care, contact tracing, isolation, safe and dignified burials and trusted community engagement, and called on countries that have imposed travel restrictions to lift them, saying they punish transparency and harm the response. (Source: World Health Organization)
Source: World Health Organization
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：刚果（金）埃博拉疫情防控工作资料图，与本稿同属同一事件线。来源：GSM 图片库。 / Ebola response work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (file photo, same story thread). Source: GSM photo library.
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