NAIROBI: There is hope after the unveiling of the Ebola vaccine.
The new vaccine whose trials have been done in Guinea has been developed by Merck and Co, a pharmaceutical company. Tests have shown that the vaccine offers protection against Ebola by up to 100 per cent.
The vaccine has been accepted for review by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Emergency Use Assessment and Listing.
Dubbed the Ebola Zaire vaccine V920, expectations are that it will offer the much needed cushion against the virus which wreaked havoc last year. According to WHO, over a total of 28,616 Ebola cases were reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. About 11,310 deaths were also reported during the 2014-2015 outbreak.
Merck's vice president for clinical research, Paula Annunziato said, "This application to the WHO is an important step toward enabling V920 to be used if a public health emergency of international concern were to be declared for the Ebola Zaire species prior to licensure of the vaccine candidate."
During the study, 11,000 people were put on trial. Those who received a shot of the vaccine in the final stage of the study did not report any cases of Ebola even an incubation for period of ten days.
The study offers a much needed reprieve for the African continent which has suffered the ravages of Ebola outbreak especially West Africa.
The study's lead author, Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for health systems and innovation at WHO, "While these compelling results come too late for those who lost their lives during West Africa's Ebola epidemic, they show that when the next Ebola outbreak hits, we will not be defenceless."
Before the vaccine is approved for commercial distribution, it will have to be subjected to studies involving data regarding quality, safety; efficacy and effectiveness; as well as a risk and benefit analysis for emergency use.
However, 300,000 dosed of the virus is in stock in case of an outbreak again.
Initially engineered by scientists from Canada by the Public Health Agency, the V920 was licensed to Newlink genetic Corporation at a time when the Ebola outbreak had hit its peak.
NewLink Genetics allowed Merck to further the work of finding whether the vaccine candidate was fit. Clinical trials are going on in USA, Canada, the European Union and Africa.
During the last outbreak, Kenya put in place stringent measures of vetting people traveling into the country, thus managing to prevent an outbreak.