The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced the start of a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) to assess whether an existing Ebola vaccine can provide protection against the strain responsible for the country’s ongoing outbreak.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the first participants received vaccinations on Friday in Bunia, marking the launch of the trial known as Tumaini, a Swahili word meaning “hope.”

The outbreak has recorded more than 9,700 cases and over 4,600 deaths, making it the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the country’s history, according to the report.

The current epidemic is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which no approved vaccine or treatment is currently available.

Researchers will initially test Ervebo, a vaccine approved for protection against the Zaire strain of Ebola, to determine whether it can also offer some protection against the Bundibugyo variant.

Tedros said the trial would provide important scientific evidence on potential vaccines, adding that the WHO was supporting the Congolese-led initiative to identify effective ways to prevent further deaths.

The Tumaini programme is designed to assess the safety and effectiveness of multiple vaccine candidates within a single trial framework.

Two additional vaccines specifically developed for the Bundibugyo strain are also expected to be included as they progress through earlier stages of clinical testing.

One candidate is being developed by the University of Oxford using an adenoviral vector platform, while the other is being developed by US biotechnology company Moderna using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

The trial comes as health authorities continue efforts to contain the outbreak and address the lack of approved vaccines and treatments for the virus variant driving the epidemic.