Ebola Vaccine Passed Trials Sucessfully
The experiments held by the US National Institutes of Health showed that vaccination from Ebola virus can develop a “long-term” immunity, which can last at least for 10 months. The vaccination was successfully done on monkeys, and that means a rising prospect of successful human tests.
Human trials started on the first week of September in the US and will continue in the UK and Africa. WHO states, that more than 2,000 people died in the West Africa during the outbreak. So these experimental treatments could help to stop the spread of Ebola.
These treatments include the vaccine developed by US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The Ebola vaccine is supposed to trigger the immune system to develop immunity.
Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases assured that:
"The good part of this vaccine is that at five weeks or earlier you get full protection. The sobering news is the durability isn't great, but if you give a boost, a second shot, you make it really durable”
The best proof of his words will be the good result of the vaccine when it is tried on people. These tests will take place in the US, the University of Oxford in the UK as well as in Mali and Gambia. WHO promises to start vaccination in the West Africa by November 2014, if the vaccine is proved safe.
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Doctors and other healthcare workers will be in a front line of vaccination. Currently, almost 400 dozes of vaccines are available. And if smaller amount of it is needed for immunity - there will be nearly 4,000.
Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham, said:
"This is really encouraging data. The degree of protection seen with the chimpanzee adenovirus alone - which will be used in one of the human clinical trials planned for the UK, Mali and the Gambia - was still pretty impressive, especially when the animals received Ebola virus within a few weeks of vaccination. This is important as it would keep the dosing regimen simple and could still provide good protection in the sort of outbreak that we are seeing in Western Africa at the moment.”
Recently if was also announced that a prototype of Ebola drug called ZMapp has also successfully passed tests. Its results showed that ZMapp cured infected lab monkeys. It was also given to a several patients with Ebola. But as for humans, the result is still unclear because while 2 persons died, another two recovered.
Source: Legit.ng
