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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 27 2016, @03:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-let's-work-on-the-cold dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Joe on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:32AM

    by Joe (2583) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:32AM (#446515)

    In the context of the paragraph, they excluded ebolavirus disease in their efficacy calculations that occurred up to 10 days after vaccination due to the lag time of immunity. In the context of the paper, the authors report ebolavirus disease "through the 84 days follow-up period and from the indefinite surveillance system throughout the epidemic period".

    we don't need to bother with mentioning it when interpreting the results

    The patients reported 14 cases of fever out of 5837 patients and 11 of those were within the first 3 days after vaccination (within the 10-day period excluding ebolavirus disease). You can look at the graph and see that patients are still getting ebolavirus disease during this time in both treatment groups. There is no evidence for ibuprofen curing ebolavirus disease and there is incredibly weak data of it as an direct ebolavirus antiviral.

    Scientific papers are not gospel, so feel free to disagree with their conclusions or my interpretation of their findings. If you take the position of assuming bad faith (hiding data, deliberately giving patients a cure for ebolavirus to alter their results, deceptive in their presentation of their conclusions), then there is no amount of evidence in the paper that could convince you of anything. What I don't understand is that you seem to require very little scientific evidence to support your idea of ibuprofen acting as a curative ebolavirus antiviral or as a long-lasting curative preventative treatment.

    - Joe

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:50AM (#446556)

    Thanks, are you sure that does not refer to some subgroup? I am not willing to put the effort towards parsing phrases like this right now:

    Moreover, when comparing all contacts and contacts of contacts in clusters immediately vaccinated versus all contacts and contacts of contacts in delayed clusters plus all contacts and contacts of contacts never vaccinated in immediate or non-randomised clusters...

    And no, you have misinterpreted my concerns. I expect attempts to avoid obvious confounds, and discussion of alternative explanations in the paper with justification for why some (including not obvious) could not be dealt with. Sampling bias, which is all they discuss, is one tiny part.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:43PM (#446642)

      Yes.

      As for the quote:
      The ring strategy used contact tracing from an index case, so anyone who had direct contact with someone with Ebola (contacts) or indirect contact through another person (contacts of contacts).
      Patients were randomly assigned to the immediate or delayed vaccination group prior to vaccination, but not all patients consented or showed up to be vaccinated (never vaccinated group).

      The numbers for these groups and the percent compliance for each day of interaction is in the supplement.