A vaccine against Ebola has led to 100 per cent protection in recipients, researchers have revealed. There were no proven drugs or vaccines against the virus at the start of the biggest outbreak of Ebola in history, which has so far killed 11,000 people. The World Health Organisation described the development, announced in medical journal The Lancet, as a potential “game changer”. Experts said the results were “remarkable”. However, there was still caution among the world’s leading doctors because these results are only preliminary, and there is more data to analyse. The results still need to be confirmed. Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, also stressed that the vaccine was not “a silver bullet” to head off future outbreaks.
Remarkable: Tests were conducted on 4,000 people in Guinea, West Africa She said: “There is no replacement for very strong and good, resilient health systems with the capability for surveillance.” But Dr Sakoba Keita, Guinea’s Ebola response coordinator and one of the study’s authors, said: “We’re holding our breaths hoping that the results will open the door to the discovery of a new strategy that will contribute to the rapid control of the next epidemics caused by this disease.” In the meantime, family and close friends or colleagues of Ebola patients in Guinea will now be vaccinated immediately. Medecins sans Frontieres called for the vaccine to be rolled out to the other affected countries to break chains of transmission and protect frontline health workers. Bertrand Draguez, medical director at MSF, said: “With such high efficacy, all affected countries should immediately start and multiply ring vaccinations to break chains of transmission and vaccinate all frontline workers to protect them.” The clinical trial centred on the VSV-ZEBOV vaccine, started by the Public Health Agency of Canada and then developed by Merck and NewLink Genetics. It combined a part of the Ebola virus with another safer virus in order to train the immune system to beat Ebola. A clinical trial took place in Guinea. When a patient was identified, their friends, neighbours and family were vaccinated to create a “protective ring” of immunity. One hundred patients were identified in the trial between April and July and then close contacts were either vaccinated immediately or three weeks later. In the 2,014 close contacts who were vaccinated immediately there were no subsequent cases of Ebola. In those vaccinated later there were 16 cases. Researchers said they showed that the vaccine could be “highly efficacious in preventing Ebola virus disease”.
Deadly: The virus has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the most recent outbreak Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director general at the WHO, said: “It is certainly promising. We have seen that where rings have been vaccinated, the transmission has stopped. “Prior to vaccination there were cases, cases, cases. The vaccine arrives and 10 days later the cases are flat. “It could be a game changer because previously there was nothing, despite the disease being identified 40 years ago.” More than 11,000 people have died from Ebola and nearly 28,000 have been infected. The massive scale of the current outbreak immediately led to an unprecedented race to develop vaccines. Prof John Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who helped design this trial, said: “The development has been at an absolutely unprecedented speed. “This is very good news, these are very significant results, the epidemic is not over and this shows we have another potential weapon. “The trial is still continuing, these are interim results which need confirming, but there’s now light at the end of the tunnel.” Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said it was a “remarkable result” and was the product of international collaboration. He added: “Our hope is that this vaccine will now help bring this epidemic to an end and be available for the inevitable future Ebola epidemics.” http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ebola-vaccine-found-new-drug-6171298

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