Posted on 08/28/2014 8:29:29 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
The National Institutes of Health announced today that it will begin testing an Ebola vaccine on humans starting next week — efforts that were expedited in response to the outbreak tearing through West Africa.
“We have accelerated the timeline for testing experimental Ebola vaccines that we have been developing for several years,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, during a phone conference today.
The study is “the first step in developing a vaccine that could be licensed and used in the field to protect not only front-line health care workers, but those living in areas where Ebola virus exists,” he said, adding that the escalating situation requires an “all-hands-on-deck response.”
The vaccine is being developed by the NIAID in collaboration with health care company GlaxoSmithKline and the United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases.
The vaccine performed “extremely well” when tested on monkeys, Fauci said.
Fauci said the first three volunteers will be enrolled in the study next week, and the trial will eventually enroll 20 adults ages 18-50. The study will be conducted at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
ping
I can't imagine anyone volunteering for this. But on the bright side they probably pay $100.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Thanks for the ping! (and the host of articles you have posted!)
I have a suggestion for First Guinea Pig....
randomly pull samples and inject them into 0bama, his family, soros, and the other dems.
then maybe I’d consider it
WHO finally posted an update. (26AUG14)
We’ve crossed the 3000 case line, officially. DRC’s case and fatality numbers were NOT in the numbers provided by the current WHO update.
Trends indicated by the data:
It took from 02APR14 to 16JUL14 to go from less than 100 to 1000 active cases. 71 calendar days.
From 16JUL14 to 12AUG14, we went from 1000 cases to 2000 cases. 27 calendar days.
We crossed 2000 on 12AUG14. We crossed 3000 on 25AUG14. That’s 13 calendar days.
Using only official counting, we can expect crossing 4000 cases being reported open in just the four countries they are officially using in the count in 6 to 7 calendar days.
If that bears out, then the R0 on Ebola Guinea in the reporting countries tracked by WHO is 2 or higher - officially.
71 days for the first 1000 cases, to 27 for the second, to 13 for the third.
Open cases projections:
7 days for the fourth 1000 reported open cases, 4 days for the fifth, 2 for the sixth, 1 day for the seventh, 12 hours for the eight, 6 hours for the ninth, 3 hours for the tenth, 1.5 hour for the 11th, 45 minutes for the 12th, and then you start looking at REAL acceleration of the disease.
What this indicates is that within 18 calendar days, there will be 1000 new cases of Ebola occurring every minute of the day, and from there it will accelerate even more.
Again, using JUST the numbers provided about the countries WHO is currently tracking, and nothing else.
The problem right now is that the only intervention (the I, in MEIRS) is to isolate and seal borders. No vaccine, no serum at the moment. There are candidates, but nothing declared effective.
Within 30 days, there will be 1000 new cases PER SECOND if no other interventions are activated.
I also looked at the ratio of reported dead to open cases - it runs between 50% and 63% for the entire period of WHO reporting. It was holding at a steady 54% for the last two months, down from 63% for the previous two before that. This last reporting period, this ratio was 50% for the first time.
This lag between reported deaths and reported open cases will continue to stretch, probably dropping as low as 30% before the deaths start to catch up to the reported open cases and the estimated fatality rate of 70%.
This gap occurs because people catch the disease faster than they die from it. Once you start showing symptoms, it still take quite a while to die. This ratio dropping doesn’t mean that fewer people are dying from the disease. It just means that people are catching it faster than they are dying from it.
The bodies are piling in the streets and dogs are starting to eat them.
Estimated fatality is still around 70%, but the estimated clinical attack ratio is probably in the high 90’s at this point. This estimate is supported by the extremely high infection rate of health care personnel who are using physical interventions, not interacting with patients directly, and are still catching it.
What has NEVER been reported are the total number of RECOVERIES - the total who have caught it, and beat it on their own.
The vaccine will not give them Ebola nor will they expose them to the Ebola virus. They will administer the vaccine, then sample blood and look for the antibodies. They already know what that should look like from survivors. So I would say very low, although not zero risk.
This is the safety study, where no exposure to the virus is required. The second part of the study is the dose-finding, which again requires no exposure to the virus.
It is the last set of studies, the efficacy phase, where volunteers are likely to be scarce--that phase requires challenge with virus.
There is not much info on the DRC cases, and they probably constitute a different outbreak with a different strain or clade of virus. I'd like to see genetic data on that one.
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...
A vaccine for all strains? A vaccine for a rapidly evolving virus?
Thanks for the ping!
It will be outdated before they cap the vials.
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
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