WHO: World ‘on verge’ of Ebola vaccine

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that an Ebola vaccine has been proven effective in preventing the disease for the first time, marking a potential turning point in the nearly 18-month epidemic.

“This is an extremely promising development,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the organization’s director-general, said Friday, declaring that the world is “on the verge” of a vaccine.

{mosads}More than 5,000 volunteers worldwide have participated in the clinical trial of the vaccine, VSV-EBOV, including many in the United States. Preliminary results of the data — which found 100 percent vaccine efficacy — were published Friday in the British journal The Lancet.   

The nearly yearlong race for an Ebola vaccine has involved billions of dollars and dozens of governments. That timespan is considered a breakneck pace for the medical world, which can take a decade to develop and approve a vaccine for global use.    

“This record-breaking work marks a turning point in the history of health R&D,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO’s assistant director-general of health systems and innovation.

The clinical trial began in March in Guinea, ground zero for the epidemic outbreak. The government there has largely supervised the efforts, with help from the WHO and experts in multiple countries, including Canada, France, and the U.S.

“For the first time ever, we received evidence of efficacy of a vaccine that will help fighting Ebola,” said Dr. Bertrand Draguez, medical director for Doctors Without Borders, which had 1,200 volunteers participating in the trials.

Acknowledging the limited scope of the analysis so far, Draguez said the vaccine should immediately be given to people who are the most at risk because of the “enormity of the public health emergency.”

“Now that we know that the vaccine works, people who need it most should imperatively get it as soon as possible,” he said, pointing specifically to people around infected patients and among frontline workers.