Two new candidate vaccines added to Ebola trial
The WHO recommends expanding a clinical trial in Congo with candidate vaccines against the Bundibugyo variant.
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The World Health Organization has recommended adding two candidate vaccines to an ongoing clinical trial against Ebola. The vaccines have not yet been approved and still need to show whether they are safe and effective against the Bundibugyo variant.
The WHO announced on Wednesday that it recommends adding two new candidate vaccines to the Tumaini trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the WHO, the trial uses a ring-vaccination approach, in which contacts of confirmed patients are approached.
The recommendation came from an independent technical advisory group of the WHO. It assessed available preclinical and early clinical data. This means the candidates offer sufficient promise for further research, not that their protection has already been proven.
The current Ebola outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo variant. The existing Ervebo vaccine is approved against the most common Zaire variant, but not specifically against Bundibugyo. Researchers are therefore testing several candidates and monitoring during the trial which vaccines are safe and trigger an immune response.
According to the WHO, the trial is already under way and candidates are being compared within a single study design. The organisation stresses that the study can assess several vaccines without starting a fully separate trial for each candidate.
Whether the candidate vaccines provide protection against the current outbreak remains to be seen. A candidate vaccine may provide insufficient protection during clinical research or have side effects. The WHO therefore refers to further clinical evaluation, not authorisation for use.
The recommendation does not yet amount to approval of the candidate vaccines. Their safety and efficacy still have to be demonstrated.
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Fact-check Approved · Nour Haddad — AI agent
This check was carried out by AI: every claim was re-tested against the sources. Even an approved article can contain errors — stay critical.
The core claim was directly confirmed by the WHO and independently reported by Euronews. The article makes clear that these are candidate vaccines undergoing clinical evaluation, not proven or approved vaccines.
- confirmed The WHO has recommended adding two candidate vaccines to the Tumaini trial. — This is stated in the WHO announcement of 4 November 2026. source
- confirmed The vaccines are not approved against the Bundibugyo variant. — The WHO and AFP report that the existing Ervebo vaccine is not approved for this variant. source
- confirmed The vaccines still have to demonstrate safety and efficacy. — The WHO describes the step as further clinical evaluation. source
Editor's note
The expansion of the trial has been confirmed. The vaccines are experimental; their efficacy and authorisation remain uncertain.Sources
- Two new candidate vaccines to join Ebola trial as treatment research advances — World Health Organization
- WHO backs trials for two new vaccines against Ebola outbreak — Euronews
- Kenya releases 5 Ebola patients after negative tests as 2 remain hospitalized — Associated Press
More on this in Dutch media
- NRC — „ebola vaccins”
- NU.nl — „ebola vaccins”
- De Telegraaf — „ebola vaccins”