A 37-year-old volunteer in Oxford has become the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola. The trial is significant because this strain has no licensed vaccine or specific treatment, while an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spreading rapidly.

Oxford scientists developed the ChAdOx1 BDBV vaccine in eight weeks using technology related to the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, and plan to recruit 50 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 55. More than 2,500 cases and 1,000 deaths have been reported since the Congo outbreak was declared in May, although the true infection total may be substantially higher because conflict limits access to affected communities.