The Scientist - Human Ebola vaccine trial begins

[iansmith]

Phase I safety test of the multimodal vaccine's DNA component will last 1 year | By Jeffrey M Perkel


The leader of the team that designed an Ebola vaccine and tested it in macaque monkeys expects to see no adverse effects in the human trial of the vaccine, which began last Tuesday (November 18). The phase I trial just initiated will test the vaccine's DNA component, manufactured by Vical Inc., a San Diego–based biotech company. The entire vaccine, developed by Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, employs both naked DNA and an adenoviral vector.

The trial will include 27 subjects, 21 of whom will receive the vaccine and six of whom will receive a placebo. At monthly intervals, subjects will receive an escalating dose (2 mg, 4 mg, 8 mg) of naked plasmid DNA—grown in bacteria—encoding Ebola nucleoprotein, the Zaire-subtype glycoprotein, and the Sudan-subtype glycoprotein, in phosphate-buffered saline, delivered via pressure injection into muscle, in a needle-less process. As of last Friday, only two subjects had received injections, according to VRC Director Gary Nabel, who designed and tested the vaccine.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20031124/06

 

[Jikx]

Is Ebola really that much of a killer to warrant a vaccine? Or is it just the fact that it is seen as THE killer virus from the movies which liquifies your organs, rather than something as boring as HIV..

 

[iansmith]

Originally posted by Jikx
Is Ebola really that much of a killer to warrant a vaccine? Or is it just the fact that it is seen as THE killer virus from the movies which liquifies your organs, rather than something as boring as HIV..

Yes, Ebola is an hemorrhagic fever but liquification of the organs is rarely seems. Some strains of the virus have an 90% killing rate whereas some other strain have a less than 10% killing rate. Central african countries have sporadic outbreaks killing couple of people.