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An experimental vaccine for Ebola has been developed by the World Health Organization and has displayed a 100% success rate on its trials in Guinea.
"It's the first vaccine for which efficacy has been shown," said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, a WHO assistant director-general and the study's lead author.
The vaccine was distributed to 5,837 people last year in Guinea, according to the Lancet medical journal. Within 10 days, all participants were free of the virus; they were followed up on for 84 days. It has proven to be nearly free of major side-effects (minor side-effects included headaches, fatigue, and muscle pain, but what doesn't), except for 80 people who had severe problems, only 2 of which could accurately be linked to the vaccine. All recovered without complications.
Other treatments are still under study, and other strains of Ebola such as Sudan still need a vaccine.
Sources: The Lancet Al Jazeera NY Times
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday December 27 2016, @05:09PM
So 2/5837 gives us a .03% mortality rate from the vaccine (assuming those two died) compared with Ebola's survival rate of up to 70%. Seems like the bar was pretty low in trying to find something that would work, glad they hit it out of the park with something showing such a resounding success. Did not RTFA, but is this effective regardless of strain or is it strain-specific?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @05:28PM
All recovered without complications.
It's even in summary
(Score: 2, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 27 2016, @06:04PM
I'm not an expert on this, but the summary implies in the last line that it is specific to the Guinea strain.
The articles say it specifically targets (or rather uses?) "a surface glycoprotein of Zaire Ebolavirus" which makes it sound highly specific to that strain. I don't know how different the strains are.
The techniques they used may be applicable to the other strains though.