Study: Ebola vaccine works, needs booster

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

New monkey studies show that one shot of an experimental Ebola vaccine can trigger fast protection, but the effect waned unless the animals got a booster shot made a different way.

Some healthy people are rolling up their sleeves at the National Institutes of Health for the first human- safety study of this vaccine in hopes it eventually might be used in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The NIH on Sunday published some of the key animal research behind those injections. One reason the vaccine was deemed promising was that a single dose protected all four vaccinated monkeys when they were exposed to high levels of Ebola virus just five weeks later, researchers reported in the journal Nature Medicine.

Is five weeks fast enough?

That’s in line with other vaccines routinely used today, and it didn’t take multiple doses to trigger that much protection, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose employees led the work.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama says helping contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a U.S. national security priority but it’s going to be a long and difficult task.

He says the American military will be helping set up isolation units and equipment there and providing security for public-health workers from around the world.