Doctors on Wednesday announced that the first test of the new Ebola vaccine shows hope for people of West Africa. They claim it to be safe and appear to be working. Twenty people injected with the vaccine has shown no serious and dangerous serious effects. The vaccine was proven to protect monkeys from Ebola.
It seems to be producing an increased immune response that would help the body prevent the proliferation of the virus as well as protect it from infection from the deadly virus. Ebola Virus Disease has killed more than 5,000 people in West Africa in just eight months since it started in March this year. It has infected 15,300 people in West Africa and other countries like the United States, Italy and even Spain.
According to Dr. Tony Fauci, Head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and one of those who helped develop the vaccine, "This response is very comparable to the level of the response that actually protected the animals."
The most ravaged and affected countries are Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Now, even Mali is experiencing the wrath of the virus. Health experts have made it sure the development of the vaccines will be fast-tracked because the epidemic of Ebola is threatening worldwide health. They are projecting worldwide epidemic once the virus will reach other countries. Treatments are still under development and they promise to have an established treatment plan by mid-2015.
They are hoping to make ample vaccines to at least protect health care workers who are sacrificing their own health to control the spread of the virus and take care of those already affected. "This response is very comparable to the level of the response that actually protected the animals," Dr. Fauci added.
National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and GlaxoSmithKline are working hand in hand to develop the first ever vaccine. It utilizes a common cold virus called adenovirus that normally infects monkeys and chimpanzees. However, they are assuring that the vaccine won't cause any symptoms when administered to humans. It is designed with a small strain of the Ebola virus which will make the immune system recognize the virus when it will attack the body/ Hence, the natural immune system of the body will kill the virus preventing it to cause serious clinical manifestations like diarrhea, fever, vomiting and eventually death.
