September 8, 2014
By Krystle Vermes, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
An Ebola vaccine that has been tested in monkeys is now being given to a small group of healthy human volunteers. This comes after the vaccine showed that it could protect monkeys for up to 10 months.
The treatment, which was developed by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Okairos, is effective for at least five weeks in lab monkeys. GlaxoSmithKline purchased Okairos last year.
FOX News reports that the treatment requires an additional vaccine to extend its protection to 10 months. Research comes from a study, published in the journal Nature.
“The National Institutes of Health began giving the vaccine to healthy people last week for the first time,” said NPR’s Rob Stein. “The goal of that study is to make sure the vaccine is safe - and start to see if it might protect people. The study’s among several that researchers are rushing to start because of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. But experts say it could take months to know whether any of the vaccines are safe and effective.”
The human testing is being carried out in Bethesda, Md., at a clinical center. It includes 20 U.S. adults, who are receiving the vaccination in a variety of doses. Results are not expected to come until the end of 2014.
In experimentation, the vaccine worked by using a chimp adenovirus into which scientists sliced an Ebola gene. The vaccine prompts the animal to accept the gene and produce Ebola proteins. In turn, the immune system attacks all of the proteins of the Ebola virus.
“This will take us, at the minimum, to the end of the year,” Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told HealthDay News. “And if it is safe and does have a response that you would predict would be protective, then you would move on to the next phase to study it over a year to find out what the right dose is, what the response is and the long-term safety.”
Approximately 10 drugs are being tested as possible cures for people who are infected with Ebola, according to Bloomberg. If approved, a vaccine would keep healthy people from contracting the disease, rather than treat them following a positive diagnosis.
The World Health Organization has stated that preventative treatments may become available next month for health workers in West Africa, where an Ebola outbreak has claimed more than 2,000 lives.
