Behind the Life-saving Ebola Vaccine is a Story of Missed Opportunity

[TomSea]

Behind the Life-saving Ebola Vaccine is a Story of Missed Opportunity

In April 2005, Canadian microbiologist Steven Jones walked into an isolation ward clad in protective gear, picked up a chubby, burbling baby boy and fed him a bottle. Jones had arrived in Angola the month before, part of an international relief effort to help quell an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus. Two days later, that baby boy was dead, and Jones — who had recently helped develop a vaccine he believed could have saved him and hundreds of others — was plagued by the question: what if?

“We had something that could stop the disease in its tracks,” said Jones in a recent interview with FRONTLINE. “But we weren’t able to use it.”

Jones’ research team had discovered a vaccine, dubbed rVSV-ZEBOV, that was 100 percent effective in priming the immune systems of mice and monkeys to fight off Ebola and Marburg. The vaccine hadn’t been tested in humans, but that didn’t stop Jones’ team from bringing vials to Angola. “If we had had an accident, we would have taken it, no question,” Jones said. “But it was awful knowing that we had something that could potentially stop that outbreak, and we couldn’t.”

Read more at: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/behind-the-life-saving-ebola-vaccine-is-a-story-of-missed-opportunity/

I thought there were stories in the past two weeks saying that an effective ebola vaccine has been found.  So, something to watch.