As Con­go Ebo­la out­break fes­ters, FDA ap­proves first vac­cine to com­bat dead­ly virus

As an Ebo­la out­break rages on in the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go — the FDA has ap­proved the first vac­cine to pro­tect against the dead­ly he­m­or­rhag­ic virus, months ear­li­er than ex­pect­ed. Man­u­fac­tured by Mer­ck the de­vel­op­ment of the vac­cine, chris­tened Erve­bo, be­gan dur­ing the West African out­break that oc­curred be­tween 2014 and 2016, which killed more than 11,000.

The ap­proval for the ge­net­i­cal­ly en­gi­neered at­ten­u­at­ed live vac­cine comes about five weeks af­ter its Eu­ro­pean en­dorse­ment. Mer­ck ex­pects to launch the vac­cine in the third quar­ter of 2020.

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