Ebola Vaccine Success

Initial results from the trial showed 100per cent protection after 10 days.

17:41 05 August 2015

A trial of the Ebola vaccine in Guinea has shown 100per cent success, a huge step, according to the World Health Organization, in protecting humans against the deadly virus that has already killed more than 11,200 people in West Africa since it began in December 2013.

 

The vaccine, Merck and Newlink Genetic’s VSV-ZEBOV, was tested on some 4,000 people who has bee in close contact with a confirmed Ebola case. Results showed 100per cent protection after 10 days.

 

Global health specialists said that the results were “remarkable” and “game-changing.”

 

"We believe that the world is on the verge of an efficacious Ebola vaccine," WHO vaccine expert Marie Paule Kieny told reporters in a briefing from Geneva.

 

Meanwhile, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters: "This is going to be a game changer. It will change the management of the current Ebola outbreak and future outbreaks."

 

Jeremy Farrar, a leading infectious disease specialist and director of the Wellcome Trust, said the trial "dared to use a highly innovative and pragmatic design, which allowed the team in Guinea to assess this vaccine in the middle of an epidemic".

 

"Our hope is that this vaccine will now help bring this epidemic to an end and be available for the inevitable future Ebola epidemics," his statement said.