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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @11:56PM
I don't remember what happened with ZMapp, but remember when the original paper came out it was BS too. IIRC, unblinded technicians euthanized monkeys according to subjective and poorly described criteria. The primary outcome was survival of the monkeys! Then there is this study: They gave the subjects a substance that suppresses ebola symptoms (and has also been proposed to "cure" ebola) after the vaccination, then only looked at data for the next 1.5 weeks.
If the medical field is still struggling with basic concepts like blinding and making sure you are measuring the correct thing, I don't think more money should be thrown at it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @11:59PM
No idea where 1.5 weeks came from, that should be 4 weeks.