Ebola vaccine safe and effective in early tests, say scientists

AN experimental Ebola vaccine appears safe and has triggered signs of immune protection in the first 20 volunteers to test it.

AN experimental Ebola vaccine appears safe and triggered signs of immune protection in the first 20 volunteers to test it, US researchers reported yesterday.

The development emerged as the estimated death toll for the unprecedented outbreak of the disease topped 5600.

The vaccine is designed to spur the immune system’s production of anti-Ebola antibodies, and people developed them within four weeks of getting the shots at the National Institutes of Health. Half of the test group received a higher-dose shot, and those people produced more antibodies, said the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Some people also developed a different set of virus-fighting immune cells, named T cells, the study found. That may be important in fending off Ebola, as prior research found monkeys protected by the vaccine also had that combination response.

Stimulating both types of immune response is “a promising factor”, said Anthony Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose employees led the work.

The researchers reported no serious side effects. But two people who received the higher-dose vaccine briefly spiked fevers, one above 39C, which disappeared within a day.

Earlier this month, Dr Fauci told US congress this first-stage testing was promising enough that the US planned much larger studies in west Africa, starting in Liberia in early January.

The World Health Organisation said yesterday the global death toll from the Ebola virus had increased to 5689 out of a total of 15,935 cases of infection, mainly in western Africa. The earlier WHO toll from last Friday gave a death toll of 5459 and 15,351 cases.

The WHO said the number of deaths was probably far higher, given the difficulty in collecting comprehensive figures and with Ebola having a high fatality rate.

The outbreak ever continues to affect Guinea, Liberia and ­Sierra Leone the most.

Liberia has been the worst hit of all, though the death rate there appears to be slowing.

“Case incidence is stable in Guinea, stable or declining in Liberia, but may still be increasing in Sierra Leone,” the WHO said in its update.

The WHO reported a total of 3016 Ebola deaths in Liberia out of 7168 cases. In Sierra Leone, it has logged 1398 deaths, up from 1267 previously, and 1260 deaths have been recorded in Guinea.

In all, about 600 new cases were reported in these three worst-hit countries over the previous week.

In Mali, the most recent county in the region hit by Ebola, the WHO spoke of eight confirmed cases, six of which had proved fatal.

The tolls in Nigeria (eight ­fatalities) and Senegal (one case) have remained unchanged for 57 days. Both countries have been taken off the danger list.

Health workers have been among the worst hit, suffering 340 deaths out of 592 cases. There have been four Ebola cases diagnosed in the US, one of which was fatal. One confirmed case occurred in Spain, a nurse who has recovered.

AP, AFP