Hyderabad: Ella Foundation yesterday announced that it has successfully completed preliminary studies to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus, which has claimed hundreds of lives in West Africa.
Ella, a not-for-profit research organization, is among the two foundations from the Asian region which won the Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) grant, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to foster innovation in global health research.
The Hyderabad-based foundation said it had completed the preliminary animal experiments of the virus' glycoprotein with the targeted adenovirus.
Claiming that the results of animal experiments were good, Ella Foundation founder director Krishna Ella said these would be followed by pre-clinical toxicology and then clinical trials in humans.
He said Ebola vaccine programme initiated in November last year was an expression of solidarity and the pledge by the Indian prime minister to help the West African nations with their fight against Ebola virus.
According to the World Health Organisation,the current outbreak of Ebola has claimed more than 10,000 lives.
The foundation earlier helped Bharat Biotech to develop of H1N1 pandemic influenza in the early stage.