- Dr Margaret Chan, director general of WHO said there is no Ebola vaccine because it had only affected poor African nations
- Speaking at the regional committee for Africa in Benin, she criticised drugs companies for turning their backs on 'markets that cannot pay'
- Dr Chan said current outbreak had exposed two WHO arguments 'that have fallen on deaf ears for decades'
- She highlighted an 'urgent need' to strengthen African healthcare systems
- Professor Peter Piot, who helped discover Ebola in 1976, warned the current outbreak will not be brought under control under there is a vaccine
- Two promising drugs are in development are there are trials taking place in the US, UK, Mali with plans to extend them in Europe, Gabon and Kenya
- First safety and efficacy results are expected by the end of next year
- Healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea could receive the trial drugs as part of the second phase of trials in January
By Lizzie Parry for MailOnline
Published: 10:20 GMT, 4 November 2014 | Updated: 15:28 GMT, 4 November 2014
A vaccine to protect millions from the Ebola virus decades after it was first detected does not exist because the disease previously only affected poor African nations.
The head of the World Health Organisation's scathing conclusion came as nearly 5,000 people have lost their lives to the hemorrhagic fever - the majority in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, criticized drugs companies for turning their backs on 'markets that cannot pay'.
She said the current outbreak - the most deadly in history - has exposed two WHO arguments 'that have fallen on deaf ears for decades'.
A vaccine to protect millions from the Ebola virus decades after it was first detected does not exist because the disease previously only affected poor African nations, the director general of the World Health Organisation has said. The first Ebola drug trial in Africa has started with three healthcare workers in Mali, pictured
Three Malian health workers have been given the experimental vaccine, as 37 more prepare to take part in the trial. It is hoped the first results of the trials will be available at the end of next year
There are also vaccination trials ongoing in the US and UK, and GlaxoSmithKline, who are working on developing the drug, are producing 10,000 doses, which, if the first phase of the trial prove successful, will be available to vaccinate front line healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea early next year
Addressing the regional committee for Africa in Benin yesterday, Dr Chan said: 'Ebola emerged nearly four decades ago. Why are clinicians still empty handed, with no vaccines and no cure?
'Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations.
'The R&D (research and development) incentive is virtually non-existent.
'A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.
'WHO has been trying to make this issue visible for ages. Now people can see it for themselves.'
She highlighted an 'urgent need to strengthen long-neglected health systems', in Africa.
'When heads of state in non-affected countries talk about Ebola, they rightly attribute the outbreak's unprecedented severity to the "failure to put basic public health infrastructures in place",' Dr Chan said.
'Without fundamental public health infrastructures in place, no country is stable. No society is secure.
'No resilience exists to withstand the shocks that our 21st century societies are delivering with ever-greater frequency and force, whether from a changing climate or a runaway killer virus.'
She added: 'The Ebola outbreak that is ravaging parts of West Africa is the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times.'
Professor Peter Piot, one of the team who first discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic Congo, in 1976, has warned the current outbreak is unlikely to be brought under control in the absence of a vaccine.
Nurses prepare to carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial in a community on the outskirts of Monrovia
A Red Cross worker picks up the body of a suspected Ebola victim, removing it from a township in Monrovia, ready for burial
Giving a seminar at Oxford University last month, he said: 'In theory Ebola is very easy to control, but it has got completely out of hand.
'This is no longer an epidemic, it is a humanitarian crisis. It may be we have to wait for a vaccine to stop the epidemic.
'The good news is I think this is the last Ebola outbreak where we only have isolation and quarantine to treat.
Why are clinicians still empty handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations
'Hopefully we will have a drugs and vaccines to offer in Africa.'
Development of vaccines typically take up to 10 years, but in August WHO took the unprecedented decision to fast-track clinical trials of those drugs in development.
The most promising vaccine is GlaxoSmithKline's ChAd3 drug.
The pharmaceutical giants are working with the US National Institues of Health to develop ChAd3, which is currently the subject of clinical trials in the USA, UK, Mali and Switzerland.
Initial results from the phase one trials are expected by the end of next year, the company said.
The UK-led trials are taking place at the Jenner Institue in Oxford, supported by a £2.8million grant from the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Government.
Funding from the consortium supporting the vaccine is enabling GSK to begin manufacturing around 10,000 additional doses of the vaccine in preparation.
A Liberian burial team collect the body of a victim at a motor vehicle garage in Paynesville on the outskirts of Monrovia
Health workers stand in an area used for Ebola quarantine after caring for two-year-old Fanta Kone, who died at an Ebola virus center in Kayes, Mali - the first death in the country
It means if the phase one trials are a success, the next stage of the clinical trial can begin early next year, involving the vaccination of thousands of frontline healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
GSk said: 'If the vaccine candidate is able to protect these healthcare workers as we hope it will, it could significantly contribute to efforts to bring this epidemic under control.'
Another potential vaccine, VSV-EBOV, is being developed by scientists at Canada's Public Health Agency, supported by a £3.1million grant from the Wellcome Trust.
Animal studies have suggested the vaccine is 'very effective', and clinical trials began in the US last month.
Professor Peter Piot said the current outbreak will not be brought under control until there is a vaccine
The first results are expected by December, and there are plans to trial the vaccine in Europe, Gabon and Kenya.
In August the Canadian Government announced a donation of the experimental drug to the WHO.
The first shipment - which will ultimately total 800 vials of the vaccine - was sent to the WHO in Geneva in October, where partners and the health authorities from the affected nations will determine how the vaccine should be distributed and used.
Since Professor Piot and his colleagues first uncovered the deadly disease in 1976 there had been 25 outbreaks until the current epidemic.
In the virus' 37-history, there had been around 1,500 deaths, confined to central Africa, until a two-year-old child in a remote Guinean village died from Ebola in December, sparking this crisis.
Equating to around 40 deaths a year, Professor Piot said Ebola was not considered a big public health problem.
As a result there had been little interest from pharmaceutical companies and governments around the world in focusing on developing a vaccine.
Professor Piot, said: 'We always thought it would be an accident of nature, and that now and then people would die.
'Most of these outbreaks have been in central Africa. There was one in Ivory Coast but that was a different strain from 1976.
'They have mostly been contained to the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan.
'That is why there wasn't much interest in this outbreak at the start, because it wasn't really a big issue.
'All that changed this year.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2819977/There-no-Ebola-vaccine-virus-previously-affected-poor-African-nations-chief-says.html#ixzz3I7NQCCRI
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