Is inhalable Ebola vaccine round the corner?
5 Nov 2014 5:35 AM IST
A team of scientists working at the University of Texas have announced a breathable, respiratory vaccine currently under development that could provide sustained benefits against Ebola to non-human primates. According to reports, one dose of this non-injectable vaccine could stave off Ebola for a good measure, as suggested by the results arrived at during a pre-clinical study to test its effectiveness.
This could be an important step towards winning the difficult and currently almost out-of-control battle against Ebola, which is breaching barriers and reaching new regions from deeply affected West African countries. Scientists say an inhalable vaccine could substantially lessen costs pertaining to transporting and storing the drug, as well as making it easier to administer to sick persons, particularly in the affections parts of Africa. An announcement in this regard is likely to come in a day or two.
Quarantining and treating Ebola patients have not only posed a massive challenge before the global community but have also sparked politics of identity as increasingly more and more Africans and people travelling from such countries were being screened to test for Ebola.
Amidst outrage and panic, spread of contagion through contact with any kind of bodily fluids from an infected individual caused alarm among governments and pharmaceutical companies, sparking a race to create the Ebola vaccine. Interestingly, Ebola has been on World Health Organization radar since 1976 when it was discovered, and the current outbreak of epidemic has been one of the most
difficult to contain.
It courted controversy with US president Obama calling for a concerted attempt to tackle the global crisis, while Australia declaring a blanket visa ban on Ebola affected countries. However, given that fatality rate has been a high 70 per cent of those infected, the international public health emergency has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons until now.
Professor Maria Croyle along with Dr Gary Kobinger at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg have been working for over seven years to ‘develop a respiratory formulation that improved survival of immunised non-human primates from 67% to 100% after challenge with 1,000 plaque forming units of Ebola Zaire 150 days after immunization,’ according to a news report.
This could be an important step towards winning the difficult and currently almost out-of-control battle against Ebola, which is breaching barriers and reaching new regions from deeply affected West African countries. Scientists say an inhalable vaccine could substantially lessen costs pertaining to transporting and storing the drug, as well as making it easier to administer to sick persons, particularly in the affections parts of Africa. An announcement in this regard is likely to come in a day or two.
Quarantining and treating Ebola patients have not only posed a massive challenge before the global community but have also sparked politics of identity as increasingly more and more Africans and people travelling from such countries were being screened to test for Ebola.
Amidst outrage and panic, spread of contagion through contact with any kind of bodily fluids from an infected individual caused alarm among governments and pharmaceutical companies, sparking a race to create the Ebola vaccine. Interestingly, Ebola has been on World Health Organization radar since 1976 when it was discovered, and the current outbreak of epidemic has been one of the most
difficult to contain.
It courted controversy with US president Obama calling for a concerted attempt to tackle the global crisis, while Australia declaring a blanket visa ban on Ebola affected countries. However, given that fatality rate has been a high 70 per cent of those infected, the international public health emergency has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons until now.
Professor Maria Croyle along with Dr Gary Kobinger at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg have been working for over seven years to ‘develop a respiratory formulation that improved survival of immunised non-human primates from 67% to 100% after challenge with 1,000 plaque forming units of Ebola Zaire 150 days after immunization,’ according to a news report.
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