World Health Organization Reports 100 Percent Success on Ebola Vaccine Testing

The deadly Ebola virus is getting closer to having a vaccination.

The World Health Organization on Friday said that it will continue testing an Ebola vaccine that has had a 100 percent success rate so far among more than 4,000 people who have had close contact with Ebola patients in Guinea.

“This is an extremely promising development,” Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said in a press release. “The credit goes to the Guinean Government, the people living in the communities and our partners in this project.

“An effective vaccine will be another very important tool for both current and future Ebola outbreaks.”

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The trail used a “ring vaccination” strategy, which attempts to immunize everyone within an immediate circle of affected patients, including friends and family, to stop the spread outside that ring.

The test was initially randomized, with patients getting vaccinated at different intervals. The randomization has since stopped so that everyone can get vaccinated.

“Until now, 50 percent of the rings were vaccinated three weeks after the identification of an infected patient to provide a term of comparison with rings that were vaccinated immediately,” the release explains. “This now stops. In addition, the trial will now include 13- to 17-year-old and possibly 6- to 12-year-old children on the basis of new evidence of the vaccine’s safety.”

Testing of the vaccine will also be extended to medical workers who have been working with affected patients to protect them from the disease.

“This is Guinea’s gift to West Africa and the world,” Dr Sakoba Keita, Guinea’s national coordinator for the Ebola response, said in the release. “The thousands of volunteers from Conakry and other areas of Lower Guinea, but also the many Guinean doctors, data managers and community mobilisers have contributed to finding a line of defence against a terrible disease.”