Ebola vaccine being fast tracked

Trials in West Africa prove 100 per cent effective

GUINEA – A highly effective vaccine that guards against the deadly Ebola virus could be available by 2018, the World Health Organisation reports.

Trials conducted in Guinea, one of the West African countries most affected by an outbreak of Ebola that ended this year, show it offers 100 per cent protection. The vaccine is now being fast-tracked for regulatory approval. The vaccine means the virus should never again be able to wreak the havoc it did during the recent epidemic in west Africa, scientists say.

More than 11,000 people died in the outbreak, which began unnoticed in December 2013 and spread across the region, infecting at least 28,600 people and triggering a global response, including a race to get an effective vaccine tested and into use.

Final results for the vaccine that was rushed into trials in Guinea and later Sierra Leone show that it was highly effective against one of the most lethal known pathogens in existence.

Ten days after vaccination, none of the trial subjects developed Ebola virus disease.

“While these compelling results come too late for those who lost their lives during west Africa’s Ebola epidemic, they show that when the next Ebola outbreak hits, we will not be defenceless,” said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, the World Health Organisation’s assistant director general for health systems and innovation, and the study’s lead author.

Merck, Sharp & Dohme, the company manufacturing the vaccine, has received permission to go through fast-track procedures for a licence from the US and European regulatory authorities. It has committed to making 300,000 doses that will be ready for any emergency even before formal approval.

Among the 5837 people who received the vaccine, still known only as rVSV-ZEBOV, no Ebola cases were recorded 10 days or more after vaccination. Among those who were not vaccinated, there were 23 cases.

There were very few serious side-effects – one case of fever and one of anaphylaxis (allergic reaction) thought to be related to the vaccine.

Co-author John Edmunds, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, whose team helped design the trial, said: “This novel and historic trial, conducted under the most difficult of circumstances, has demonstrated that the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine is safe and effective. “When Ebola strikes again we will be in a much better position to offer help to affected communities, as well as protect the brave volunteers who help control this terrible disease.”

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, which supported the trial, said the outcome was “simply remarkable” and demonstrated what was possible even in the midst of a raging epidemic.

“We’ve shown that by working collaboratively, across international borders and sectors, we can develop and test vaccines rapidly and use them to help bring epidemics to an end,” he said. “Had a vaccine been available earlier in the Ebola epidemic, thousands of lives might have been saved. We have to get ahead of the curve and make promising diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for diseases we know could be a threat in the future. My hope is that this success story provides the inspiration we need to make this happen and change the way the world prepares for epidemics.”

- PNC