Ebola Vaccine passes the early safety test – Big achievement by GSK

Scientists told to a medical journal that an experiment on Ebola vaccine was made by GlaxoSmithKline which caused no serious side effects and produced an immune response in all 20 healthy volunteers who received it in an early-stage of clinical trials. The safety profile is encouraging; as is the finding that the higher dose of vaccine induced an immune response was quite comparable to the completely protected animals (in lab experiment) from Ebola. The intramuscular vaccine was developed at NIAID and Okairos, a biotechnology company acquired by GlaxoSmithKline. It contains genetic material from two Ebola strains, Zaire- responsible for the current outbreak in West Africa, and Sudan – but there is no virus, so it cannot cause any disease. The trial was done on few volunteers ages 18 to 50.  Half of them were given a lower dose and half a higher dose. All 20 developed anti-Ebola antibodies within four weeks, with those on the higher dose producing more. Dose also affected production of T cells; seven of 10 people on the high dose produced one crucial kind of T cell, but only two on the low dose did. The higher the dose required triggering immunity, the more challenging and expensive it will be to produce large quantities of vaccine, manufacturers say. The results are promising but cautioned that there are many more challenges ahead before the vaccine’s safety and efficacy are established.