Reality-Based Engineering

Vaccine for Ebola And Marburg Viruses?

From dailykos' Science Friday, this article about high hopes for a vaccine to combat Ebola and other hemmoragic fever viruses. That would be powerful, indeed. A quote from the NYT article:

Scientists trying to develop vaccines against Africa's deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses are reporting an important milestone, a new type of vaccine that prevents the diseases in monkeys. Successfully immunizing monkeys is an essential step toward the goal of producing vaccines for people.

Two new vaccines, one for Marburg and one for Ebola, were 100 percent effective in a study of 12 macaques being published today in the journal Nature Medicine. Monkeys given just one shot of vaccine and later injected with a high dose of virus did not even get sick. Normally, all the animals would be expected to die.

The Marburg and Ebola viruses are closely related, and in both people and monkeys they cause hemorrhagic fevers that can be fatal within a week. There is no vaccine or treatment for either disease. Death rates in people can be high, sometimes exceeding 80 or 90 percent.

Angola, where a Marburg epidemic was first detected in March, is still struggling to contain the disease, which has killed 340 of 408 victims. The virus is spread by contact with blood, saliva, vomit or other fluids from sick patients.

The two new vaccines are still experimental, and will not be ready even to be tested in people for at least two years. If human trials are successful, products might be ready for licensing five or six years from now, the researchers said. The vaccines would not be used for routine immunization, but would be given to health workers in high risk areas, virus researchers and people who had been exposed to the disease, like relatives and other close contacts of sick patients. Eventually, it might be possible to combine the vaccines to protect people from both diseases with a single shot.

posted by jimboses @ 9:30 PM