WHO adds two Bundibugyo vaccine candidates to the Tumaini trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

5 November 2026

Two further Ebola vaccine candidates are to be taken into a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the World Health Organization has said, while an outbreak of the Bundibugyo species of the virus runs on there. Prioritising them was the recommendation of an independent expert panel, the Technical Advisory Group on Candidate Vaccines Prioritization. Never before has a vaccine built specifically against the Bundibugyo virus been put to the test in the middle of an outbreak of the disease. One candidate, ChAdOx1, comes from the University of Oxford; the other, mRNA-1469, comes from Moderna. That they are ready for trial speaks to what science and partnership together can do, said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who added that vaccines by themselves will not finish the outbreak but could turn into a powerful new tool for controlling it. Nothing on this scale has been seen in the country before, with confirmed cases past 10,500 and deaths at 5,126. Tumaini, which is Swahili for hope, is the name of the trial, and it opened at Bunia, the capital of Ituri province and the centre of the outbreak, where Ervebo, the vaccine for the Zaire species, is under test as well.