A team of Ghanaian scientists has hit the Volta Region to allay the fears of the people concerning the upcoming Ebola vaccine trial at the Onchocerciasis Research Centre in Hohoe.
The vaccine research experts are made up of officials from the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), the Ethics Review Committee of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS).
At a public forum, they explained the reasons behind the selection of the Oncho Research Centre in Hohoe and the Kintampo Health Research Centre for the trial, stating that the two were centres with well-equipped clinical trial facilities of international standards and well-recognised qualified biomedical scientists and clinical vaccine studies.
The forum The forum was to address the concerns and uncertainties raised by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) about the proposed vaccine against the Ebola Virus Phase II clinical trials in the country and issues raised by the public.
The Vice-Chancellor of the UHAS, Professor Fred Binka, said the Ebola epidemic was not over and that as long as new cases continued to appear, people would remain at risk of the spread of the Ebola infection.
According to him, there was the need to develop efficacious drugs to treat people who got the disease, which had claimed the lives of over 10,000 people.
Prof. Binka, while justifying the need for Ghana to join the global search for an effective vaccine, said, “Ebola trial vaccines will not harm us”, as they had been tested to be safe.
“Ghana was selected to take part in this multi-country study through a competitive process and this reflects the high regard in which Ghana’s science is held by the global health community and the quality of clinical trial capacity,” he explained.
Volunteers He indicated that it was untrue that some students of the Hohoe Midwifery Training School had been selected as volunteers for the test trial, since the trial vaccines were yet to be brought into the country and they were to be tested in the general population.
According to him, there was too much false information about the exercise which had created misconceptions and fears among the populace, as people were afraid the Ebola disease would spread in the country with the conduct of the trials.
Prof Binka, who noted that Ghana stood to benefit from the trials, said it would generate more research ground for the UHAS and thereby create the environment for the university to be universally accepted.
FDA can suspend trial For now, the FDA has granted approval for the trials to be conducted.
However, the acting Deputy Chief Executive of the Safety Monitoring and Clinical Trial Division of the authority, Mrs Delese Mimi Darko, said it had the mandate to stop the process if the trials were not done according to international standards, saying it would not hesitate to halt the trial if the need arose.
The Director of the NMIMR, Prof. Kwadwo Koram, stated that with the approval from the FDA, the exercise would take place but indicated that the requested safety standards would not be overlooked.
The Volta Regional Director of the GHS, Dr Joseph Nuertey, and Dr Ama Edwin, a member of GHS Ethics Committee, addressed the participants.
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