A new vaccine against Ebola called VSV-ZEBOV demonstrated 100% efficacy ten days after being given to people who were not infected, according to findings published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet . In the trial were involved 4,000 people who maintained close contact with the hemorrhagic virus in Guinea, one of the three countries affected by the current outbreak.
Because of the urgency required by this crisis, the clinical development of this vaccine is made from the initial human trial to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the vaccine in a Phase III study in Guinea, in less than twelve months, a record time.
The vaccine trials were led by the World Health Organization (WHO), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Guinean authorities. They began in March this year in Guinea, and focus on the analysis of “circles” of people in the environment of infected patients, and front line workers at greatest risk of contracting the disease.
MSF is very involved in testing the vaccine and administered to 1,200 workers in Guinea, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, laboratory personnel and cleaning teams and funerals.
Dr Bertrand Draguez , who heads the MSF program on experimental techniques to combat Ebola, recognized that current data “tell us that the vaccine protects people against Ebola although the sample size is small and more research is needed. ” He said the magnitude of the public health emergency indicates that the vaccine used to protect workers will more risk or exposure.
“For the first time in history we have an effective vaccine against Ebola. This is an extraordinary development, but we need more research and analysis to find out how effective it really is a preventive tool: it is still unclear how the protection or how long it appears, “said Dr. Draguez, MSF
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