Researchers have developed an Ebola vaccine that is predicted to have approval from the FDA and the World Health Organization by 2018.
Dr. Mark Rupp, Professor in Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UNMC, says the report, released in The Lancet, highlights data that was released about a year ago.
Toward the end of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, researchers went into communities where Ebola cases had been reported.
They then gave either immediate or delayed vaccinations to those who had been exposed to the virus.
The result was that the individuals who had received an immediate vaccination were better protected against Ebola than those who received a delayed vaccination.
Rupp says the data indicate the drug was 100% effective in the trial run. Despite the results, Rupp says additional questions must be answered.
"How long is it effective? So they will need to go back to some of these people that have had the vaccine and test for how long they’ve had antibodies in their system and see if there are still protective effects. They will also need to do some further study whether it’s effective against the various types of strains of Ebola because there’s not just one strain, there are several strains.”
Rupp stresses that there is well over a decade of research behind this study that allowed researchers to test the vaccine. It all started after the Anthrax release in 2011.
Since then, he says scientists have been doing all sorts of studies to develop a vaccine against potential bio-weapons.