World Health Organization: Experimental Ebola Vaccine Doses Will Be Ready By 2015

BI ^ | 9-26-2014 | AFP

[blam]

September 26, 2014
AFP

Geneva (AFP) - Thousands of experimental Ebola vaccine doses from British GSK and US NewLink should be ready for use by early 2015 in countries affected by the epidemic, the World Health Organization said Friday.

"If everything goes well, we may be able to begin using some of these vaccines in some of the affected countries at the very beginning of next year," said WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny.

There is no licensed treatment or vaccine against the virus that has killed nearly 3,000 people in West Africa, and the UN health agency has endorsed rushing through experimental treatments and vaccines.

WHO is especially focusing on two experimental vaccines, one made by British company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and the other by US group NewLink Genetics, and is working with both companies to accelerate clinical trials, Kieny said.

Some clinical trials have begun in the United States, and others are set to begin in Mali next week, she said.

The agency has already said that, if found to be safe, some doses should be available for use to healthcare workers by November and wider use could be possible early next year.

The Canadian government has already donated 800 viles of the NewLink vaccine to WHO, and Kieny said thousands of doses would likely be available in coming months.

Around 10,000 doses of the GSK vaccine should also be available by then, she said.

"This is not a vaccine, this is a candidate vaccine," she said, pointing to the need for showing great caution in rolling out the vaccines more broadly.

(snip)

[PghBaldy]

RE: US testing - Does this seem possible without some special red tape cutting, given the FDA?

[PghBaldy]

I found the answer: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/guinea/qa-experimental-treatments.html

[null and void]

Eeeee-bolllll-aaaaaa ping!

Bring Out Your Dead

We’re gonna need

a bigger cart!

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...

[PghBaldy]

OK. From a site we can’t post anything from, per copyright rules (UK Independent), there is a county in Liberia, IIRC, in which there are now only 2 doctors for 85,000 people.

[EQAndyBuzz]

There is no vaccine. They cannot invent a vaccine for the common cold. This is a feel good measure that at best will relieve some symptoms with the hope of allowing the body to fight the virus better.

[PghBaldy]

There are plenty of vaccines against viruses (measles, smallpox, rubella, mumps). Just because there is none for the HUNDREDS of varieties of the common cold, means little. That said, even if they did make a vaccine that worked, it would be years before it was ready for the general population.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping…

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

[EternalHope]

So... Enough vaccine may be ready by January(?) to inoculate 10,000 people.

FIRST, this needs to be put in context:
We could be looking at more than a million victims by January, with the number of victims more than doubling every month. It is probable that a situation like this will cause a complete breakdown of all infrastructure.

SECOND, we don’t even know if the vaccine will work, or be safe enough to use. To put this in context:
Most experimental vaccines do NOT work.
There won’t have been enough time to find out if it is safe.

THIRD, by January it will be too late to save the worst hit countries. To put this in context:

If the vaccine is safe and works, how long does it take after getting the shot before the body has created meaningful immunity? (It could take a couple of weeks.)

How long until a meaningful number of doses can be manufactured? (Most likely, quite a while.)

How will a meaningful vaccination program be implemented, and how long will it take to do so? (It will take a long time, even if a way can be found to do so.)

In other words, a vaccine, even IF it works, will be too little, too late, to help in the areas that are already hit.

WHAT ELSE WILL BE HAPPENING BY JANUARY?
Millions of people will be attempting to flee. Those financially able will attempt to flee by plane, boat, and car. The majority will attempt to flee on foot.

So... If we find a workable vaccine, the best we can hope for is that it will be useful in protecting the rest of the world. Let’s hope and pray it works.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

"This is not a vaccine, this is a candidate vaccine," she said, pointing to the need for showing great caution in rolling out the vaccines more broadly.

Beats doing nothing. Hopefully, the vaccines will be proven, and then we'll have doses available, eventually, for every American. (Yes, Ebola is going to come here in an uncontrolled fashion, it's just a matter of when.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!