The World Health Organisation said Guinea had began an efficacy trial of an Ebola vaccine in a Coyah district village, Basse-Guinee region.
Jean-Marie Dangou, WHO Guinea Representative, said on Wednesday in Conakry that the trial was starting a month after the first large-scale trial of two experimental vaccines got under way in Liberia.
“The trials in Liberia focus first and foremost on vaccine safety and immune response,” Dangou said.
He said the efficacy trials were to determine whether the vaccine produces the expected result under ideal circumstances.
Dangou said the trial in Guinea was one of the most important milestones in seeking a modern line of defence against Ebola.
He said: “WHO and the national health department will test VSV-EBOV, a vaccine developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
“For now, only adults will participate with the exception of pregnant women.”
Dangou said the trial would be conducted in the form of “ring vaccination”.
Ring vaccination is a method used to identify recently infected patients and vaccinating all their contacts to create a “ring of immunity” to stop the virus from spreading.
Ana-Maria Henao-Restrepo, WHO Trial Coordinator, said the ring vaccination was the same strategy used in eradicating smallpox in the 1970s and allows those at greatest risk to be vaccinated.
She said WHO planned to vaccinate more than 10,000 people in 190 rings within six to eight weeks.
Henao-Restrepo said participants would be observed for three months and the first results are expected to be available in July.
Ebola epidemic, which broke out in Guinea in December 2013, has killed 10,194 people worldwide with the number of people who have become infected with Ebola in the last 15 months reaching 24,701.
Sierra Leone, the third West African nation that was heavily hit by the epidemic, will start a vaccine trial later this month.
dpa/NAN.