Breakthrough in Ebola vaccine research

Scientists in the United States have developed a vaccine that "holds great promise" for the protection of people against Ebola, an haemorrhagic fever that has no known cure, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) reported on Wednesday. "After years of developing candidate Ebola vaccines that protected rodents but failed in primates, it is gratifying to have a vaccine that holds great promise for protection of humans," Peter Jahrling, a senior research scientist at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was quoted as saying. He added that the vaccine could reduce the hazard of working with Ebola virus in the laboratory, as well as provide protection to populations at risk of natural exposure. The national institute reported that a single shot of the "fast-acting" experimental Ebola vaccine successfully protected monkeys from Ebola after only one month. If it proves similarly effective in people, the national institute said, the vaccine could allow scientists to quickly contain Ebola outbreaks with ring vaccination, a strategy successfully used in the past against smallpox. The vaccine was the result of collaboration between scientists at the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center, part of the NIAID, and scientists at USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, MD. "This research has enormous public health implications not only because it might be used to limit the spread of Ebola virus, which continues to emerge in central Africa, but also because this vaccine strategy may be applied to other highly lethal viruses, such as the Marburg and Lassa fever viruses and the SARS coronavirus, that cause acute disease outbreaks and require a rapid response," Anthony Fauci, NIAID director, said. NIAID said the Ebola virus spreads easily from person-to-person, causes illness quickly and kills a significant number of the people it infects. If the results of the study on the primates that the vaccine was tested on holds true for humans, the new vaccine could be the Ebola-fighting tool that public health officials need during epidemic outbreaks, the institute said. NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health in the US. It supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immune-mediated illnesses, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, illness from potential agents of bio terrorism, tuberculosis, malaria, autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.