Ebola vaccine found to be highly protective in trial, UN health agency says

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday published the results of a major trial of an experimental Ebola vaccine in Guinea, one of the three West African countries hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak, showing this vaccine to be highly protective against the deadly virus, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here.

"It is the first vaccine to prevent infection from one of the most lethal known pathogens, and the findings add weight to early trial results published last year," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"The vaccine is the first to prevent infection from one of the most lethal known pathogens, and the findings add weight to early trial results published last year," WHO said in a news release, noting the results of the latest trial, published earlier Friday in the medical journal The Lancet.

According to WHO, the vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV was studied in a trial involving 11,841 people in Guinea during 2015. Among the 5,837 people who received the vaccine, no Ebola cases were recorded 10 days or more after vaccination. In comparison, there were 23 cases 10 days or more after vaccination among those who did not receive the vaccine.

The Ebola virus was first identified in 1976 and caused sporadic outbreaks in Africa. However, the 2013-2016 outbreak in west Africa, that killed more than 11,300 people, underlined the urgent need of a vaccine.

The Ebola outbreak in 2013 killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea and its neighbors Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea was in fact the only one of the three worst affected countries that hadn't had a re-emergence of the virus after the outbreak was officially declared over there on Dec. 29, 2015. Endit