Norway hails breakthrough in vaccine for Ebola

Norway on Friday hailed a significant breakthrough in the fight against Ebola as preliminary results of a study in Guinea indicate that the first effective vaccine for the deadly disease may have been successfully developed.

"An effective vaccine would be a significant breakthrough in the fight against Ebola and would be invaluable for the affected countries and the international community as a whole," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, whose country helped fund the study.

The study analyzed 7,651 individuals, more than 3,500 of whom were vaccinated, and results of this interim analysis indicate that the vaccine "might be highly efficacious and safe in preventing Ebola virus disease," according to a report published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

"The results are very promising and bode well for our efforts to stop the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa and to deal more effectively with similar outbreaks in the future. I am pleased that Norway has played an active role in achieving these results," Brende said.

The vaccines study has been a collaborative effort between the health authorities in Guinea, the World Health Organization, the Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

It has been funded primarily by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the Norwegian Research Council, the UK-based charitable foundation Wellcome Trust and the Canadian health authorities. Endit