An experimental Ebola vaccine tested on thousands of people in Guinea seems to work and might help shut down the waning epidemic in West Africa, according to interim results from a study published on Friday.
The study involved several thousand people who had been near a new Ebola patient or a close contact of one. They were randomly assigned to get the vaccine right away or in three weeks.
Researchers started tracking results 10 days after they set up the groups to give time to weed out any people who might have been silently harboring the virus when the study began.
After that point, none of the people in the group that had been assigned to get the vaccine right away developed Ebola, versus 16 people in the group eligible to get the vaccine after 21 days.
The vaccine, developed by the Canadian government, has since been licensed to Merck & Co, but has not yet been approved by regulators. The study results were published online on Friday by medical journal the Lancet.
At the moment, officials think the vaccine would only be used once an outbreak starts, to protect those at high risk; there are no plans to introduce mass vaccination campaigns like those for measles or polio or to create huge stockpiles of the shots.
Merck, based in Kenilworth, New Jersey, noted its vaccine is in what is normally the final round of human testing in Sierra Leone and in mid-stage testing in Liberia.
Merck plans to manufacture the vaccine if it is approved for use outside patient studies. In late-morning trading in the US, Merck shares were up US$0.62, or 1.1 percent, at US$59.13.
An expert group monitoring the study’s data and safety recommended the trial be stopped on Sunday last week so that everyone exposed to Ebola in Guinea could be immunized.
The vaccine uses an Ebola protein to prompt the body’s immune system to attack the virus.
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