The Federal Public Service Health and the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) want to know your opinion on a vaccine plan which will be using the genetically modified rVSΔV-ZEBOV-GP vaccine made by MSD. This vaccine is meant to protect Belgian employees of Doctors Without Borders from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can share your opinion until July 25.

Ebola is a life-threatening disease for which there is currently no vaccine on the market. So it would be responsible to immunize people who have a great chance of infection with an experimental vaccine.

Already over 100 000 inoculations
Various experimental vaccines were considered for the vaccination plan, including the rVSΔV-ZEBOV-GP vaccine. Around 16 000 people have already been immunized with it in about fifteen clinical trials. In 2018 and 2019, more than 100 000 people received the vaccine during the persisting Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Share your opinion
You can give your opinion on the plan to immunize Belgian employees of Doctors Without Borders in the DRC with the rVSΔV-ZEBOV-GP vaccine. For each request for the use of a non-licensed genetically modified organism, the government organizes a legally obliged thirty day public inquiry. You can therefore look into the application file (HTML) and send us your comments and questions using the online form (Dutch or French only).

Minister of public heath’s approval
The European registration procedure for rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP is currently underway. The minister of public health approved the import and use of the vaccine on October 10, 2018 to prevent Ebola caused by the Ebola Zaïre virus. This virus strain is the cause of the Ebola epidemic in the DRC.

The immunization of the employees of Doctors Without Borders will take place in the UMC Sint-Pieter in Brussels once the GGO procedure and public survey have been completed.

The public inquiry will run through July 25, 2019.