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Merck's Ebola vaccine proves fully effective in Guinea trial

Published 2015-07-31, 08:00 a/m
Merck's Ebola vaccine proves fully effective in Guinea trial
MRK
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LUMO
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By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent
LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - An Ebola vaccine developed in
record time has proved highly effective against the deadly virus
in a large trial in Guinea and could now be used to help end a
vast outbreak in West Africa, researchers said on Friday.
Results of the trial, which tested Merck (NYSE:MRK) MRK.N and NewLink
Genetics' NLNK.O VSV-ZEBOV vaccine on more than 4,000 people
who had been in close contact with a confirmed Ebola case,
showed it gave 100 percent protection after 10 days in those
immunised.
Publishing the results online in the medical journal The
Lancet on Friday, researchers said they showed that the vaccine
could be "highly efficacious in preventing Ebola virus disease".
Jeremy Farrar, a leading infectious disease specialist and
director of the Wellcome Trust, which helped fund the trial,
described the results as "remarkable".
"This trial dared to use a highly innovative and pragmatic
design, which allowed the team in Guinea to assess this vaccine
in the middle of an epidemic," he said in a statement.
"Our hope is that this vaccine will now help bring this
epidemic to an end and be available for the inevitable future
Ebola epidemics."
Bertrand Draguez, medical director of Doctors without
Borders (MSF), which has led the fight against Ebola in West
Africa, said: "For the first time there is a prospect of a tool
that could protect lives and break chains of transmission."
More than 11,200 people have died from Ebola since the
epidemic began in Guinea in December 2013.
This and other vaccine trials were fast-tracked with
enormous international effort as researchers raced to be able to
test potential therapies and vaccines whilst the virus was still
circulating.

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