FOUR young professionals from Shenzhen-based genome sequencing giant BGI departed for West Africa on Saturday to provide assistance in the fight against Ebola there.

    The four experts will head for Sierra Leone, one of the worst disease-stricken areas in West Africa, to carry out studies on Ebola’s pathogeny, transmission mechanisms, potential adaptabilities and pathogenicity variations.

    Shenzhen Mayor Xu Qin, who saw the professionals off Saturday, said he hoped they would fulfill their mission while ensuring their own safety. Xu said that BGI’s participation in the mission to help curb the spread of the disease and treat infected patients would also elevate China’s strength in biological scientific research as well as safeguarding the country’s biological safety and people’s health.

    He also hoped the team would spread friendship from Shenzhen to the epidemic-ravaged areas and promote scientific cooperation with other countries.

    BGI has assisted in genetic studies in several public health emergencies, such as combating SARS in 2003 and an E. coli outbreak in Germany in 2011.

    Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have borne the brunt of the 20,000 infections and nearly 8,000 deaths since the current Ebola outbreak was first identified in remote southeastern Guinea in early 2014.

    China was one of the first countries to come to the aid of the countries as the outbreak occurred. So far, it has provided humanitarian aid totaling 700 million yuan (US$111 million) in addition to more than 1,000 experts on epidemic prevention and medical staff.

    Meanwhile, the first clinical trial designed to see if two experimental Ebola vaccines actually work may begin in late January and two others are slated to start in February in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Friday.

    Vaccine manufacturers and researchers are plowing ahead with plans to conduct critical clinical trials, even if dropping case counts are creating concerns in some quarters that the studies may not arrive at clear answers about whether any of the vaccines actually work.

    (Anna Zhao)