{UAH} EBOLA BREAKTHROUGH: HURRAY.

Gwokto/ Akim Odong,

Atlast a breakthrough on Ebola. Congratulations on the Scientists who
have worked day and night developing the vaccine. But do you remember
the Nubian bumpkin this time last year, claiming that Ebola was
biological warfare being tested on black people by Obama? The idiot
denied that there was even any diease or virus called Ebola. He said
it was all manufactured in laboratories to commit genocide aganst
black people. The Nubian fool should just stick to his Acholi Series.
He knows nothing about medicine. This is the proof.


George Okello


Ebola Ebola vaccine trial proves 100% successful in Guinea Rapid
development and testing of drug may bring current epidemic in west
Africa to an end and control future outbreaks, experts say

The 100% success rate of a vaccination trial against Ebola in Guinea
is very promising, says the World Heatlh Organisation
Sarah Boseley Health editor

Friday 31 July 2015 16.44 BST

A vaccine against Ebola has been shown to be 100% successful in trials
conducted during the outbreak in Guinea and is likely to bring the
west African epidemic to an end, experts say.


The results of the trials involving 4,000 people are remarkable
because of the unprecedented speed with which the development of the
vaccine and the testing were carried out.

Scientists, doctors, donors and drug companies collaborated to race
the vaccine through a process that usually takes more than a decade in
just 12 months.

"Having seen the devastating effects of Ebola on communities and even
whole countries with my own eyes, I am very encouraged by today's
news," said Børge Brende, the foreign minister of Norway, which helped
fund the trial.

"This new vaccine, if the results hold up, may be the silver bullet
against Ebola, helping to bring the current outbreak to zero and to
control future outbreaks of this kind. I would like to thank all
partners who have contributed to achieve this sensational result, due
to an extraordinary and rapid collaborative effort," he said on
Friday.

There have been a total of 27,748 cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone up to 26 July, with 11,279 reported deaths, although
the outcome of many cases is unknown and the toll will be
significantly higher. In the week ending 26 July, there were just four
new cases in Guinea and three in Sierra Leone.


Because of the diminishing number of Ebola cases in west Africa and
the shifting nature of the epidemic, with many sudden small outbreaks
occurring across the region, researchers hit on a novel design for the
trial.

The "gold standard" approach would be to take a population at risk of
Ebola and vaccinate half of them while giving the other half a
placebo. Instead, the researchers used a "ring" design, similar to
that which helped prove the smallpox vaccine worked in the 1970s.

When Ebola flared up in a village, researchers vaccinated all the
contacts of the sick person who were willing – the family, friends and
neighbours – and their immediate contacts. Children, adolescents and
pregnant women were excluded because of an absence of safety data for
them. In practice about 50% of people in these clusters were
vaccinated.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ebola virus: how it spreads and what it
does to you To test how well the vaccine protected people, the cluster
outbreaks were randomly assigned either to receive the vaccine
immediately or three weeks after Ebola was confirmed. Among the 2,014
people vaccinated immediately, there were no cases of Ebola from 10
days after vaccination - allowing time for immunity to develop -
according to the results published online in the Lancet medical
journal (pdf). In the clusters with delayed vaccination, there were 16
cases out of 2,380.

In another precedent-breaker, the trial was sponsored by the World
Health Organisation because "nobody wanted to step into this role so
we took the risk", said assistant director-general, Dr Marie-Paule
Kieny.

Funding came from the Wellcome Trust and other partners including the
governments of Norway and Canada. Others involved included Médecins
sans Frontières, whose volunteer doctors were on the frontline, and
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. About 90% of the
trial staff were from Guinea, a country where no clinical research had
been carried out before. The vaccine is made by Merck.

Kieny said: "We believe that the world is on the verge of an
efficacious Ebola vaccine."

The trial will continue, but without randomisation, which means that
in Guinea, where there have been 3,786 cases and 2,520 confirmed
deaths, every contact of a person who develops Ebola – and their
contacts – will be offered it. Work in Gabon has now established that
the vaccine is safe for children and adolescents, so they will be
offered it too.

In terms of vaccines which are usually trialled in hundreds of
thousands of people, Kierny said the numbers were small but highly
promising. It is likely when larger numbers are collected that
efficacy will be between 75% and 100%.

The future of two other potential Ebola vaccines, one from
GlaxoSmithKline and the other from Johnson and Johnson, is now in
question, because there are too few cases of Ebola for their trials to
be completed.

The authors of the research said the ring design made it "logistically
feasible" to conduct trials even in poor countries in the middle of a
fading epidemic and it was a promising strategy for the future.

"This trial dared to use a highly innovative and pragmatic design,
which allowed the team in Guinea to assess this vaccine in the middle
of an epidemic," said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust
and one of the world's leading experts on infectious disease. "It is a
remarkable result which shows the power of equitable international
partnerships and flexibility.


"Our hope is that this vaccine will now help bring this epidemic to an
end and be available for the inevitable future Ebola epidemics. This
partnership also shows that such critical work is possible in the
midst of a terrible epidemic. It should change how the world responds
to such emerging infectious disease threats."

John-Arne Røttingen, the head of infectious disease control at the
Norwegian Institute of Public Health and chair of the trial's steering
group, said it had been a race against time in the most challenging
circumstances.

"We are really pleased with the interim results," he said. "It is
really important to add the vaccine to the traditional hygiene
measures we have used in the response so far. I believe this will be
an important contribution to getting down to zero cases."

Médecins sans Frontières said it was keen for the vaccine to be used
in Sierra Leone and Liberia, where there were still cases.

Bertrand Draguez, MSF's medical director, said: "In parallel with the
ring vaccination we are also conducting a trial of the same vaccine on
frontline workers. These people have worked tirelessly and put their
lives at risk every day to take care of sick people. If the vaccine is
effective, then we are already protecting them from the virus.


"With such high efficacy, all affected countries should immediately
start and multiply ring vaccinations to break chains of transmission
and vaccinate all frontline workers to protect them."

Margaret Chan, the director general of of the WHO, said the vaccine
trial's success was a promising development. "The credit goes to the
Guinean government, the people living in the communities and our
partners in this project."

The British government contributed £1m of the trial funding and has
said it will increase that amount to help allow the testing to
continue.

"Ebola has claimed thousands of lives and devastated communities
across west Africa," the international development secretary, Justine
Greening, said. "The results of these UK-backed vaccine trials are
hugely promising and represent a significant breakthrough in our
battle against this deadly disease. The vaccine offers hope for a
future where we never have to face an Ebola epidemic like this again."

Trial data will now go to regulatory agencies in the hope of getting a
licence for the vaccine which will allow it to be stockpiled for
future Ebola epidemics. It is likely to be used only for people at
risk in outbreaks and not given to whole populations.

The rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine is sometimes known as the Canadian vaccine as
it was originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada
before being sold to Merck to bring conclude the testing.

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