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New Ebola vaccine to be tested on humans by United States scientists

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As the deadly Ebola virus continues to claim lives in West Africa, health officials announced scientists from the United States will begin testing a vaccine against the disease next week, even though it could take 11 months to learn if the vaccine is safe.

So far, the virus has killed 1,500 people in Ebola Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

According to ABC news, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of the Health’s (NIH) infectious disease branch said, that the experimental vaccine co- developed by the NIH and GlaxoSmitheKline, “performed extremely well in protecting non- human primates from Ebola infection.”

20 healthy adults will be tested with the vaccine to ensure that the drug is safe and effective.

In a statement made on Thursday, Fauci said, “A vaccine will ultimately be an important tool in the prevention effort,” adding that phase 1 study is “the first step to progress,” ABC news reports.

The 20 subjects will be tracked for 48 weeks but safety results are only expected later in the year, according to an NIH statement.

The NIH statement further explained,“It is important to know that the Ebola genetic material contained in the investigational vaccine cannot cause a vaccinated individual to become infected with Ebola.”

The vaccine works by delivering fragments of genetic material from two Ebola strains into a healthy person’s cells. The cells then transform that genetic material into a protein found on the virus, and that protein triggers an immune response that is meant the to fend off the infection.

 

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