Photo Courtesy of USAID
A vaccine against Ebola has been shown to be 100% successful in trials conducted during the outbreak in Guinea and is likely to bring the west African epidemic to an end, the Guardian reported Thursday.
Scientists, doctors, donors and drug companies collaborated to race the vaccine through a process that usually takes more than a decade in just 12 months.
Funding came from the Wellcome Trust and other partners, including the governments of Norway and Canada. Others involved included Medecins sans Frontieres, whose volunteer doctors were on the front line, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. About 90% of the trial staff were from Guinea, a country where no clinical research had been carried out before. The vaccine is made by Merck.
Kieny said: “We believe that the world is on the verge of an efficacious Ebola vaccine.”
The trial will continue, but without randomization, which means that in Guinea, where there have been 3,786 cases and 2,520 confirmed deaths, every contact of a person who develops Ebola – and their contacts – will be offered it. Work in Gabon has now established that the vaccine is safe for children and adolescents, so they will be offered it, too.