Ebola Vaccines Successfully Tested on Monkeys 39
An Anonymous Reader writes "Canadian and American researchers, in a joint venture between Canada's National Microbiology Lab and the U.S. military, have created two vaccines that prevent Monkeys from becoming ill with Ebola and Marburg. While a human vaccine may still be 5 years away, this is very promising news.
That's great news! (Score:2)
Did anyone see that Discovery Channel show a few (seven?) years ago about the Ebola virus and how one doctor noticed that one in one hundred or so survive and asked the survivors for blood samples and injected the samples in uninfected villagers and almost all of them survived despite being exposed to the contagion? That was neat.
Re:That's great news! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:That's great news! (Score:2)
Re:That's great news! (Score:2)
Should I ask what happened to that last half there?
Re:That's great news! (Score:2)
More details from the Globe & Mail (Score:2)
This was a front page story in today's Globe and Mail: New vaccines target Ebola, Marburg [theglobeandmail.com]. Still at least five years away from testing... but if I had Ebola I think I'd be ready to sign up for early clinical trials!
Interesting how the vaccine may end up saving African apes as well...
Eric
Read about my new AdSense book for non-techies [memwg.com]
Re:More details from the Globe & Mail (Score:2, Informative)
It's a vaccine. It prevents infection, doesn't cure it.
Re:More details from the Globe & Mail (Score:2)
No, you'd be dead [wikipedia.org].
Re:More details from the Globe & Mail (Score:2, Informative)
Not necessarily worse (Score:3, Informative)
Great. I guess. (Score:2, Interesting)
The downside is that, just like with most other vaccines, they will not distribute it to everyone everywhere. It simply isn't affordable. And once youcome in contact with it, the vaccine isn't going to do you a damn bit of good.
I don't see how an ebola vaccine is of any use, other than to vaccinate people just before they go to regions which are currently experiencing an ebola outbreak and the person being vaccinated will be directly in contact wi
Re:Great. I guess. (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, people will still die in outbreaks, but they can be contained with many fewer people. No matter what the financial cost, *I* don't want a vaccination against Ebola unless I'm going somewhere where there is an outbreak. The
Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
So when does ALF firebomb [tkb.org] the lab?
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2, Insightful)
Save millions of people? You do realize ebola has only ever killed, like, 800 people?
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
Right, so "on track to" mean "is likely to in the future". Note the tense.
In 1959 there was 1 known case of HIV. Both viruses are spread back and forth from monkeys to humans either through 'bushmeat' or other activities. Ebola is far more contagious, though the host's mortality rate is greatly increased.
So typically, we like to learn from past lessons, extrapolate, and prevent where possible.
Besides that, it can b
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, it could mutate into a slower incubating version, in which case panic, put until then, I'm not worried about filoviruses. I'd be more worried about the asian 'bird flu'.
ebola now more dangerous? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:1)
Brilliant.
And what does the Animal Liberation Front have to do with ebola?!
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:3, Interesting)
Ebola is probably not really a virus well adapted to humans. At any given time the chance that there is nobody in the world sick with it is quite high, youonly hear about sporadic outbreaks once in a while (maybe 8 times or soo in 20 years if I recall). Marburg is even rarer. So the virus lives in other organisms and once in a while it accidentally reaches humans kills of a few hundred and then the infe
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
Right. Vaccines strip you of your rights. OK.
And what does the Animal Liberation Front have to do with ebola?!
They firebomb labs that use monkeys. Try reading the links I bothered to make.
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
Strange how cigarettes do kill millions, and we can't find a cure for them yet.
Strawberry flavoured Ebola would be a big hit I think.
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
Somehow that doesn't scare people away from smoking them.
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
I didn't realize that. A little Googling suggested more like 1200, but you're right: that's pretty small compared to the all the consternation caused by The Hot Zone and Outbreak.
Still, I see that Ebola was only "discovered" (in the Western sense of "now we have a Latin name for it") around 1976. So this could well be a Lovecraftian "buried mystery" whose revelation will rise up from the murky primordial depths and slay us all...
Re:Queue the Whackos (Score:2)
It would be nigh impossible to eradicate ebola, because it has non-human carrier, each of which would also need to be vaccinated, and we don't even know the species (assuming there is only one) for certain!
Re:Great. I guess. (Score:2, Informative)
If the vaccine is based on a surface protein of the virus, it could serve to trigger and rally the immune system of an infected person. If the vaccine is merely based on inert particles, it may not help. Of course the BEST alternative for someone infected with ebola would be the blood serum of another survivor.
An ebola vaccine would be of great help in containing outbreaks of the disease. When the first case of ebola pops up in whatever isolated town, the w
Re:Great. I guess. (Score:2)
They simply did not know what they were dealing with since the disease had not been seen before, and because in the places where ebola is prevalent the sanitary standard of the West is simply non-existent.
No, it really is great. (Score:1)
But the vaccine will still be very, very useful. For example: right now, when you have an Ebola outbreak, health care workers are usually so scared out of their minds of the disease that they won't take care of the people who might or might not be infected, which ultimately leads to greater spread
Why not just test it on humans now? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the same with all drugs, why not?
Re:Why not just test it on humans now? (Score:1)
Re:Why not just test it on humans now? (Score:2)
Virus-induced haemmoragic fever (Ebola Marburg, Congo and a few others) are an extremely rare diseases that does really not affect many people. Ebola and Marburg has more schock value than anything else, mostly because if the way they kill and the fact that no
I want to be on the HMO the monkeys have. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I want to be on the HMO the monkeys have. (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Does this mean another 40 years of bad music? (Score:1)
Hey! Hey! We're the Monkey's...