--- title: Lack of Ebola Cases Shifts Vaccine Trials Away from Liberia description: The National Institutes of Health may relocate clinical trials of Ebola vaccines to Guinea, since Liberia no longer has enough cases. canonical: https://time.com/3743945/ebola-vaccine-trials/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-13T16:57:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:41.762Z article:section: Health og:title: Lack of Ebola Cases Shifts Vaccine Trials Away from Liberia og:description: The National Institutes of Health may relocate clinical trials of Ebola vaccines to Guinea, since Liberia no longer has enough cases. og:url: https://time.com/3743945/ebola-vaccine-trials/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8b2e4856a544be47/6987838b55a8593f01a864b1/ebola.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3536 og:image:height: 1989 og:image:alt: A man walks past an ebola campaign banner with the new slogan "Ebola Must GO" in Monrovia, Liberia on Feb. 23, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lack of Ebola Cases Shifts Vaccine Trials Away from Liberia twitter:description: The National Institutes of Health may relocate clinical trials of Ebola vaccines to Guinea, since Liberia no longer has enough cases. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8b2e4856a544be47/6987838b55a8593f01a864b1/ebola.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Lack of Ebola Cases Shifts Vaccine Trials Away From Liberia > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Ebola Fighters in West Africa - TIME's Person of the Year 2014 [Watch (HLS stream): Ebola Fighters in West Africa - TIME's Person of the Year 2014](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/laroqNbt.m3u8) (10:47)  _Published 2014-12-10. Hundreds of doctors, nurses and health workers work every day to treat and contain the outbreak in the hot zone_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Mar 13, 2015 4:57 PM UTC  A man walks past an ebola campaign banner with the new slogan "Ebola Must GO" in Monrovia, Liberia on Feb. 23, 2015. A man walks past an ebola campaign banner with the new slogan "Ebola Must GO" in Monrovia, Liberia on Feb. 23, 2015. Zoom Dosso—AFP/Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Mar 13, 2015 4:57 PM UTC The National Institutes of Health (NIH) may relocate its clinical trials of Ebola vaccines to Guinea, since there are no longer enough Ebola cases in Liberia for a proper efficacy trial. On Feb. 2, the NIH [launched](http://time.com/3680429/two-ebola-vaccines-are-heading-to-trials-in-liberia/) an initial safety trial for two vaccines to protect against Ebola in Liberia. The plan was to test 600 people for overall safety and then launch a second phase of the trial in 27,000 people to see whether or not the vaccine prevents infection with Ebola virus compared to a placebo. The safety test was successfully completed the week of March 9—but around the same time, Liberia announced that it had released its last confirmed patient from its Ebola treatment centers. The West African country began the count to 42 days without new cases, at which point it can declare itself Ebola-free. That’s great news for ending the outbreak, but it poses a problem for Ebola vaccine trials. Now that Ebola is not the risk it was to Liberia several months ago, the trial is unlikely to continue according to the original plan. “It doesn’t make sense to expand the study in Liberia when there are fortunately no new infections occurring,” says Dr. H. Clifford Lane, the deputy director for clinical research and special projects at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “We need to be sure we enroll a population that is still at risk for Ebola virus infection so we can show the protective effect of either or both of the vaccines.” Lane says the NIH is now in discussions with other countries, predominantly Guinea, to move the second part of the trial. When asked if there is any fear that the trial could be cancelled due to lack of cases, Lane said, “I hope not.” **MORE:** [American Health Worker With Ebola Heading to U.S. for Treatment](http://time.com/3743299/american-with-ebola/) Lane says the reason the NIH is concentrating more on Guinea than Sierra Leone—the country hardest hit by the outbreak—is that there are already several large-scale vaccine trials unrolling in the country compared to Guinea. “I think the greater opportunity is \[in Guinea\] because there isn’t as much going on with vaccines,” he says. “I hate to give a timeline, only because it never comes out that way, but we have to move quickly if we hope to get a result,” he says. “I actually hope the standard control measures will begin to show results in both of the countries that still have cases.” One of [vaccines being tested](http://time.com/3680429/two-ebola-vaccines-are-heading-to-trials-in-liberia/) is developed by the NIH and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and the other vaccine comes from the pharmaceutical company Merck. On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that deaths from Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea [have surpassed 10,000](http://time.com/3742986/ebola-deaths-10000/), and total cases number more than 24,500\. The NIH also announced that an American healthcare worker who was volunteering in Sierra Leone [tested positive for Ebola](http://time.com/3743299/american-with-ebola/) and [arrived on Friday](http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/13/health/nih-ebola-patient/index.html?utm%5Fsource=feedburner&utm%5Fmedium=feed&utm%5Fcampaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn%5Fhealth+%28RSS%3A+Health%29) for treatment in the NIH’s specialized unit in Bethesda, Maryland. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I have spent five weeks in Liberia over the past three months [ NOISE ] reporting on an outbreak of Ebola that, in the words of one Liberian doctor I met, threatened to erase his country from the map of Africa. Guys, look out. Ebola is a devastating disease [ NOISE ] and the reporting was both heart wrenching and horrifying. Have you touched him? Don't touch him. But for every time I wrote about rising death tolls, I met extraordinary men and women who risked everything from disease to distrust and even death, to stop Ebola from taking more lives. Ebola is very scary. You have to have courage. [ MUSIC ] One of the heights of Ebola. There was nowhere for anyone to go. There's dead bodies on the ground. [ MUSIC ] These are their stories. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] Being a doctor in Liberia is just sacrificial from beginning to end. You're not making anything. It's almost like a volunteer job. That's not [ UNKNOWN ]. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] My first experience as an Ebola patient the lab technician walked in with a spacesuit and I mean, he was taking every precaution not to touch and not to get infected himself. I could see the fear in his eyes. Eyes. [ MUSIC ] When the test results came back that evening and I was told that I was Ebola positive, something strange happened. I relaxed, okay, because I was happy it was not malaria. [ MUSIC ] Luckily we got. A place at Elwa Treatment Center, where they found a spot. Sadly, somebody had just passed and I was going to take their spot. Interestingly, they put me into a room where I had the guy who we assume I got the infection from. Lying right, right next to me. [ MUSIC ] At one time I was hiccupping with every breath, so they thought I, I, I wasn't gonna make it. And they were even discussing whether I would be cremated or buried. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] I'm thankful to just be alive, because with such a close call, I consider myself like somebody who has come back from the dead. [ APPLAUSE ] [ NOISE [ My name is Katie Meyler and I'm the founder of More Than Me. [ MUSIC ] I wasn't really afraid for our girls or for More Than Me because it was in Lofa County, it was far away. And who is Esther? Where's Esther? [ MUSIC ] Eventually, it hit JFK Hospital, which is one of the main hospitals here in the capital, and that's when people started to get afraid. Everyone's thinking, if this thing gets to West Point, the country's in trouble, because it's the most densely populated area in West Africa. [ MUSIC ] So we got this ambulance specifically for West Point. And we pull up to Redemption Hospital and there pulling dead bodies out of Redemption. Doesn't seem like people are moving fast enough and like everyone has accepted. It feels like their families have accepted their death. [ MUSIC ] In this crazy scene of death and dying and dead bodies, and screaming and crying and mourning. Is this cute little three to four year old girl with her pink party dress on just sitting on the steps of this ambulance with no symptoms of Ebola. Do you wanna doll baby? Yeah, I'll bring you one. My name Katie. Nice to meet you. I love you. Her mom died and now the girl had nowhere to go. [ MUSIC ] Guideon. Yeah? Please, please keep her safe away from harm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I [ CROSSTALK ]. This was going on all over the place. I mean, I started to see it more and more. And she was the first child I got close to. And I was like, she cannot stay at Redemption Hospital cuz if this girl, she might have Ebola, she might not. If she doesn't have it, she's definitely gonna get it and most likely she'll die because there's no help here are Redemption. [ NOISE ] So that's what this house became. It was called Housing Observation and Pediatric Evaluation for 21 days. Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] Laugh. [ LAUGH ] So that was the first child. And one of the nurses brought her here. [ FOREIGN ] But only for like extreme emergencies, where like kids literally would be homeless. Laugh. [ LAUGH ] My name is Foday Galla. I happen to be the supervisor of the district number 13 ambulances. [ MUSIC ] And I believe it was my calling so once I'm called to do this, I always love to help people. [ MUSIC ] You have to have passion. You have to have feelings. You have to have care. [ MUSIC ] I actually got sick trying to help a family of eight. [ MUSIC ] That I really tried to help, but seven of them had to lose their life to the Ebola virus. [ NOISE ] [ UNKNOWN ] The worst part was that people that I moved in with in the ETU, they died. They died right before my eyes. [ NOISE ] So I feel good picking up people and driving them to the centers and seeing them coming out. So this is why, this is the reason why. Why I really love to help to take people to the center, have them treated, and have them come home to their families. [ MUSIC ] Hello. What I went through in life, some of those things have had impact on. Dr. Brown. My desire to help, to relieve people out of their suffering. There is a family of nine, nine. I think there were about 14 that got infected. And out of the 14, we have. Nine survivors. There are a lot of things I've really learned from this outbreak. One of which is being able to look around yourself and see what you can use that's available. To find a remedy to the situation. Than just sitting and waiting for a remedy from outside. What's in your power, how you can make use of what's available. [ MUSIC ] My name's Ella Watson- Stryker. I'm working with MSF as a health promoter, that means that my job is primarily focused on making sure that people have the information they need about Ebola. When you have countries where there is no functioning disease surveillance system, it means that a virus can circulate for months in a rural area without anyone noticing. Wasn't until a doctor was infected and died that someone started to say, wait a minute, this is not normal, we need to investigate. [ MUSIC ] This is something that we allow to happen. It will continue in this way until better systems are put in place. And if anything comes out of this outbreak, I hope, it's that we learn how to be better at looking for, at health status in rural and urban communities, both. In areas where people don't have good access to healthcare. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] When. [ MUSIC ] We started having survivors here at the unit. Then people started coming to the E. T. U. in large numbers. What is your total number of releases? I know you are in one of those units that have released more people. Total number of releases. I know we have more than [ MUSIC ] I'm doing it because if I wasn't here on the ground, doing my job, I would be in the US reading newspapers and saying someone needs to be doing something. I thought my whole life I had nothing. And here are people who don't have drinking water or a hospital in their villages. And I wanted to help, you know? And regardless of your religion, I think that like, I know for sure like even if I died during Ebola, at least I lived for something I believed in. Can you smile? [ LAUGH ] Somebody has to. To do the job. I'm looking at it like we're fighting a war. And we all have to play our part, and I just feel that it's a duty, that I have to go back. Okay, until we can get rid of it entirely. [ MUSIC ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. [ FOREIGN ]. 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