Ebola Vaccine?

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Schneibster
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Ebola Vaccine?

Post by Schneibster » Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:46 pm

A possible vaccine for the Ebola virus has been developed and successfully tested in mice. Researchers estimate a human vaccine is not far off.

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Re: Ebola Vaccine?

Post by Geoff » Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:45 pm

Schneibster wrote:A possible vaccine for the Ebola virus has been developed and successfully tested in mice. Researchers estimate a human vaccine is not far off.

Details.
Sounds promising, but "a human vaccine is not far off" is a bit of a stretch, unfortunately.
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Re: Ebola Vaccine?

Post by Schneibster » Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:47 pm

I suppose opinions vary on what's "far off." I'm thinking 2015-2020 is "not far off." And I might be too pessimistic with that.
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Re: Ebola Vaccine?

Post by Tyrannical » Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:04 am

The virus’s remote endemic region and rare occurrence means “there’s just no practical way we would start immunizing everyone” before they’ve been exposed, said co-author Charles Arntzen, an infectious disease specialist at ASU. Yet Ebola kills so quickly that by the time the immune system has recognized the virus and mounted a response, a victim is usually dead. The key is to provide infected people with an instant dose of antibodies at first, while also priming the immune system to develop long-lasting immunity.
Sounds like a waste of time, the virus acts too fast for a vaccine to help, and it's not feasible to inoculate everyone before an outbreak.
Useful if you're a foreign doctor heading there for an outbreak though.
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