Ebola Vaccine 2015: Guinea Seen As Best Hope For Preventative Drug Trials, But Time Is Running Out

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Wed, 2015-04-08 15:36 — mike kraft

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES by Philip Roth April 7, 2015

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Health officials’ best bet for discovering a vaccine for Ebola lies with the West African country of Guinea, where the outbreak that has killed an estimated 10,500 over the past year began, and the place that researchers largely ignored when it came time for drug trials. As researchers race to find a vaccine before the window of opportunity closes – essentially, before the epidemic is brought to an end -- scientists with the World Health Organization are beginning to test a vaccine in Guinea manufactured by researchers in the U.S. and Canada.

The race to find a vaccine for Ebola is in its final lap. Pictured, research assistant Georgina Bowyer works on a vaccine for Ebola at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, southern England, Jan. 16, 2015. Reuters

“We are firmly convinced we will get results,” Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, a senior WHO official leading the Guinea vaccine trials, told Global News. “There are enough cases. We are scaling up.” Researchers at first overlooked Guinea as a place to test Ebola drugs in part because the country’s health infrastructure lagged behind its neighbors. Also, many of the areas affected by the deadly virus were initially reluctant to cooperate with Ebola responders, according to Global News. ...

While the decline in cases has certainly been celebrated, researchers fear that as the outbreak wanes, so does researchers’ chance to study and test potential life-saving vaccines. “You cannot test a vaccine for Ebola if there’s no Ebola,” Dr. Charlie Weller of the Wellcome Trust in the U.K., which has been funding Ebola vaccine research, told the Toronto Star. “You need an active epidemic, which is why there has been such a global collaborative effort to start these trials as quickly as possible.” In initial trials, the vaccine being tested in Guinea – VSV-ZEBOV – showed promise in boosting immune response against Ebola in people taking the drug.

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http://www.ibtimes.com/ebola-vaccine-2015-guinea-seen-best-hope-preventative-drug-trials-time-running-out-1872220