WHO says Ebola vaccine plans accelerating as trials advance

WHO ANNOUNCES  EBOLA VACCINE TRIALS WILL BE SPEEDED UP TO DECEMBER.
THREE RELATED STORIES.   (Scroll down)

REUTERS                                       OCT. 24

By Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland

GENEVA/LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Trials of Ebola vaccines could begin in West Africa in December, a month earlier than expected, and hundreds of thousands of doses should be available for use by the middle of next year, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Vaccines are being developed and made ready in record time by drugmakers working with regulators, the U.N. health agency said, but questions remain about their safety and efficacy which can only be settled by full clinical trials.

"Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic," senior WHO official Marie-Paule Kieny told a news briefing after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.

"We are talking now about starting in December and not January. So this shows again how everything is really pushed forward and the massive effort which is undertaken by everybody to make this happen."

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/24/health-ebola-vaccines-who-idUSL6N0SJ36N20141024
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EBOLA VACCINE ON FAST TRACK

WASHINGTON POST                       Oct. 24, 2014

Researchers racing to develop a vaccine that could help halt the Ebola epidemic are getting good news: Early human clinical trials of one leading candidate, involving small groups of volunteers in the United States and Europe, suggest that the vaccine is safe.

But the most fraught part of the unprecedented effort lies ahead: Testing the effectiveness of potential vaccines on tens of thousands of people in Ebola-stricken areas of West Africa.

That task, which the World Health Organization expects will begin in January, is raising hard questions for scientists and governments: With the epidemic raging, is it acceptable to conduct a randomized controlled trial, considered the “gold standard” of research? That would produce the best and quickest data but would mean some participants would not be given a potentially live-saving vaccine.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-researchers-develop-ebola-vaccine-early-human-clinical-trials-show-promise/2014/10/22/7d3e0978-58a7-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html

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TESTS  WILL START IN GUINEA ON USE OF ANTIBODIES FROM BLOOD OF RECOVERED EBOLA PATIENTS

NEW YORK TIMES                                   Oct. 24, 2014
(excerpt from end of article on Britain and the EU pledging additional funds to fight Ebola)
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The European Commission on Thursday announced €24.4 million, or about $30 million, in new research funding. Part of that donation will go to finance the large-scale testing in West Africa of treatments that use antibodies taken from the blood of Ebola patients who recovered.

Dr. Johan van Griensven, a researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, who is leading a team of international researchers, said in a telephone interview that tests on hundreds of people who have Ebola would be carried out in Guinea and could clear the way for treatments that sharply reduce the mortality rate.

A cure, he said, was not on the horizon, but treatments that may cut the death rate from its current level of about 70 percent to around 30 percent would “be a big step in the right direction.” That, he said, would “send a strong signal of hope to communities” in West Africa and encourage people who contract the virus to seek help as soon as possible.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/europe/britain-pledges-millions-to-fight-ebola-and-chides-others-to-spend-more.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C{%222%22%3A%22RI%3A16%22}&_r=0