Geneva, Dec 23.- The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced the effectiveness of the clinical trials of the first vaccine against Ebola, whose last outbreak claimed more than 11,000 lives.
According to the UN health agency, as part of the trials, the immunogenic rVSV-ZEBOV was tested with very positive results in 5,837 people in Guinea, the nation from where the epidemic spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia in 2014. Among those who received the vaccine, no case of Ebola was recorded within 10 days or more after the inoculation, Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation has reported.
The research also covered 6,000 additional volunteers who did not receive the injection and were followed up by WHO teams who reported 23 cases of the disease in this group.
According to Kieny, although these convincing results came too late for those who died in the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, when the next outbreak appears we will have a defense.
However, it still remains to be determined how long the immunity with this vaccine lasts and if only one dose is required to be effective.
A report on the vaccine will be submitted to the registration process in the United States and the European Union and a response is expected in 2018, which will allow the medicine to be marketed.
The vaccine - rVSV-ZEBOV was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and is produced by the US pharmaceutical company Merck.
Ebola is a disease caused in humans by the Ebola virus and usually its symptoms - fever, sore throats, and headaches - begin within between two days and three weeks after contracting the virus.
Usually, this is followed by nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, along with hepatic and renal failure.
At this time, some patients begin to suffer hemorrhagic complications.
Since the epidemic of 2014, which originated in West Africa, there have been outbreaks on other continents.