Just how many Ebola vaccines does Canada have anyway?

Scooter100

[Scooter100]

There has been recent news about Canada donating a newly developed vaccine to help fight the Ebola virus in Western Africa.

My question is: which Canadian vaccine?

Vaccine #1: Public Health Agency of Canada scientists in Winnipeg invented a vaccine, called VSV-EBOV, and Health Minister Rona Ambrose announced on Aug. 12 the government would donate the experimental vaccine. Approximately 800 to 1000 vials of the Canadian vaccine were, or are, being shipped to the WHO to the University Hospital of Geneva who have 250 people ready to begin clinical trials in four locations: Switzerland, Germany, Gabon and Kenya.

Vaccine #2: Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation, of Vancouver British Columbia, has a vaccine called TKM-Ebola developed under a $140 million contract (awarded in July 2010) with the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Project Manager Medical Countermeasure Systems (JPM-MCS) and the Transformational Medical Technologies Program (TMT), the results of which were 100% protection from an otherwise lethal dose of Zaire Ebola virus.

I will assume that the government of Canada is unable to "donate" the Tekmira vaccine since it belongs to the U.S. Army.

No doubt, both the Canadian Public Health Agency and Tekmira are smacking their lips to be able to involve large numbers of human test subjects to verify the efficacy of their respective therapeutic anti-virals. It goes without saying that there are difficulties in human testing due to the moral issues surrounding the administering of such a virulent virus. Can you imagine the volunteer's distress as he lay sweating and bleedin, of having been randomly assigned a placebo???

If anyone has more on Ebola vaccines and their unethical corporate developers, please join the discussion.

[Scooter100]

Any further comments about the number of vaccines out there?

[Vendome]

None...

[Black Agnes]

I was under the impression that Tekmira was a treatment after exposure. Like ZMapp. ZMapp isn’t a vaccine.

[Scooter100]

Who developed ZMapp and how did you learn that? Thanks.

[Peter ODonnell]

They say that the coffee at Tim Hortons is a surefire Ebola antidote. So is back bacon, eh?

[Red Badger]

Are they really meaning ‘vaccine’ or ‘medication’?
A vaccine prevents, and medication treats............

[Black Agnes]

News articles since it became public knowledge.

Lots out there.

Next question for you. How many antiviral compounds are there that are being investigated for possible ebola treatments... Given after exposure, like antibiotics are for bacterial infections.

[justlittleoleme]

Best article I could find on vaccines:

Ebola Virus Vaccine: The Drugs That Will Help End The 2014 Ebola Outbreak

http://s2.ibtimes.com/ebola-virus-vaccine-drugs-will-help-end-2014-ebola-outbreak-1701270

[kingu]

unethical corporate developers

You sure you're on the right forum? Who would you want to come up with these vaccines? Government drones where their interest is next year's budget allocation and their retirement benefits? Some random individual cooking up vaccines in their basement?

[Scooter100]

Thanks for the distinction between the two, you are 100% correct. Tekmira's TKM-Ebola is in fact an anti-Ebola viral therapeutic....i.e., an after-the-fact tool to combat the disease in those already infected.

It's hard, as an electrical engineer, to understand medical press releases. How about a few points for trying?

[Scooter100]

Regarding the military and their corporate suppliers....which words would you choose, and to whom would you address them, to describe the situation whereby someone was "sitting" on a cure for the past 4 years?

Sorry if I sounded anti-something there, the lack of solid information is a bit frustrating and thus hard to tell the real players without a scorecard.

[Scooter100]

Thanks for the article, in which it said:

The FDA also approved a drug called TKM-Ebola for emergency use to fight Ebola. It's made by Vancouver’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. and was given to an Ebola patient in Atlanta who went on to survive the virus.

You'll note that the article didn't mention that this was a U.S.-owned military drug. Also note the successful results of using it. Doesn't this make you wonder just a tiny bit?

[Black Agnes]

Some of the smartest people I know are EE’s. It’s definitely not a slacker major.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping...

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

[steve86]

Definitely both in various countrys’ pharmaceutical development pipelines.

[null and void]

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

[exDemMom]

Regarding the military and their corporate suppliers....which words would you choose, and to whom would you address them, to describe the situation whereby someone was "sitting" on a cure for the past 4 years?

No one has been "sitting" on anything for the past 4 years. There is a big problem with testing drugs and vaccines for Ebola, and that is that no one is going to volunteer to be infected with Ebola to see if the drug or vaccine works.

The other problem with Ebola drugs and vaccines is that Ebola only affects poor people in Africa, and not even that many of them. Even with this outbreak going "out of control", Ebola is a minor disease compared to all the other things that kill Africans. There is no profit in developing a drug that only a few hundred will ever use. Especially since drug development costs run into billions--companies would have to go deeply into the red to develop them, with no hope of ever recouping those costs.