Montreal (Canada) (AFP) - Canada has authorized the American pharmaceutical giant Moderna to begin clinical trials on a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, according to what the Canadian Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.

Published on: 04/08/2026 - 22:35

According to Canadian authorities, this first phase of clinical trials “will evaluate the safety of the experimental vaccine, determine the range of safe doses, and detect potential side effects.”

To date, no cases of Ebola have been recorded in Canada.

Healthy participants in the clinical trial will receive a dose of the vaccine in order to evaluate the production of antibodies against the Bundibugyo strain.

Moderna will have to conduct “additional stages of clinical trials” using the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that it pioneered in the fight against Covid.

Canada, which has been preventing the entry of any foreigner who recently resided in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since July 20, has concluded an agreement with the American company Moderna to manufacture vaccines based on messenger RNA on its territory.

There is no vaccine or treatment yet available against the Bundibugyo variant, which is responsible for the current outbreak of Ebola that was declared on May 15 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Efforts are not limited to Moderna vaccine trials, as other approaches are under study.

Hellmann Laboratories, headquartered in Singapore, will develop the rVSV Bundibugyo vaccine, which the World Health Organization considers to have the greatest chance of success.

In late July, the first volunteer received the first dose of another vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain, developed by the University of Oxford (UK) and using the same technology as the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

In addition, clinical trials are being conducted on medical treatments, in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization.

The Ebola virus, which is transmitted through close contact and contaminated bodily fluids and causes hemorrhagic fever, has claimed the lives of more than 1,700 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since May.

© 2026 AFP

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