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Ebola Vaccine Progress
Joan Stephenson, PhD
JAMA. 2001;285:284.
Although a number of other viral infections claim many more lives each year, Ebola virus is particularly feared because it spreads easily and kills swiftly and ruthlessly, before the body has time to muster an effective immune response. Now, a report that a new vaccine developed by researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) appeared to protect monkeys from infection with the deadly virus is an encouraging sign of the feasibility of developing a protective human vaccine (Nature. 2000;408:605-609).
The vaccination strategy involves a one-two punch, aimed at eliciting both antibodies and T cells directed against Ebola virus proteins. The first involves an injection of a multistrain DNA vaccine (targeting the three known fatal Ebola virus strains, Zaire, Sudan, and Ivory Coast) to "prime" the immune system. This is followed by a second vaccine, a weakened adenovirus vector engineered to express surface protein from the Zaire Ebola virus strain, to boost this response.
The investigators injected four monkeys with the DNA vaccine and booster, and gave placebo injections to another four. The vaccinated monkeys demonstrated robust anti-Ebola immune responses and subsequently survived exposure to lethal doses of Ebola virus, remaining symptom-free with no detectable virus in the blood for more than 6 months. In contrast, all four control animals died within days after infection.
"There's still some way to go before a human vaccine is available, but this is a step in the right direction," noted Dennis Burton, PhD, and Paul Parren, PhD, of Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif, in a commentary that accompanied the report (Nature. 2000;408:527-528).
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