An early-stage clinical trial of an experimental Ebola vaccine
conducted at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Walter Reed
Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) found that the vaccine, called
VSV-ZEBOV, was safe and elicited robust antibody responses in all 40 of
the healthy adults who received it, reports Science Daily.
The most common side effects were injection site pain and transient fever that appeared and resolved within 12 to 36 hours after vaccination.
A report describing preliminary results of the NIH-WRAIR study appears online today in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The VSV-ZEBOV candidate is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines now being tested in the phase 2/3 PREVAIL clinical trial that is enrolling volunteers in Liberia.
"The ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented in scope and duration," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH.
"The outbreak is slowly coming under control, thanks to extraordinary and multi-faceted efforts in the affected nations. However, there still are no licensed specific therapies or vaccines for Ebola.
Until a safe and effective vaccine is available, the world will continue to be under-prepared for the next Ebola outbreak."
Scientists at the Public Health Agency of Canada developed the
candidate vaccine. It was licensed to NewLink Genetics Corp. of Ames,
Iowa, a company collaborating with Merck & Co. Inc., of Kenilworth,
New Jersey, which is responsible for advancing this vaccine towards
regulatory approval.
The investigational vaccine is based on a genetically modified and attenuated vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a virus that mainly affects cattle.
In the investigational vaccine, a gene for a VSV protein is replaced with a gene segment from a key protein in the Zaire species of Ebola virus.
The vaccine does not contain the whole Ebola virus and therefore cannot infect vaccinated persons with Ebola.
The most common side effects were injection site pain and transient fever that appeared and resolved within 12 to 36 hours after vaccination.
A report describing preliminary results of the NIH-WRAIR study appears online today in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The VSV-ZEBOV candidate is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines now being tested in the phase 2/3 PREVAIL clinical trial that is enrolling volunteers in Liberia.
"The ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented in scope and duration," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH.
"The outbreak is slowly coming under control, thanks to extraordinary and multi-faceted efforts in the affected nations. However, there still are no licensed specific therapies or vaccines for Ebola.
A
research assistant works on a vaccine for Ebola at The Jenner Institute
in Oxford, southern England in this January 16, 2015. File photo:
Reuters
The investigational vaccine is based on a genetically modified and attenuated vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a virus that mainly affects cattle.
In the investigational vaccine, a gene for a VSV protein is replaced with a gene segment from a key protein in the Zaire species of Ebola virus.
The vaccine does not contain the whole Ebola virus and therefore cannot infect vaccinated persons with Ebola.
0 comments:
Post a Comment