\u201cWe expect the numbers to keep increasing given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected,\u201d WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Tedros has warned of the danger posed by the \u201cscale and speed\u201d of the outbreak so far.<\/p>\n
The actual number of cases may exceed 800, according to an analysis by researchers at Imperial College London and the WHO, and could be as high as 1000 in a worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n
A WHO technical advisory group met this week to discuss which potential vaccines should be prioritised. Two vaccines for Ebola were developed during a years-long outbreak in West Africa a decade ago, one from Merck & Co, and another from Johnson & Johnson. However, both were designed to block the more common and deadly Zaire strain of the virus.<\/p>\n
The most promising potential vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain is similar to the Merck shot, said Vasee Moorthy, a WHO senior adviser. Doses will probably take as long as nine months to be available for clinical trials, he said. Another shot, built on a University of Oxford platform, could be ready within two to three months, but there\u2019s no animal data yet to show how promising it could be, he said.<\/p>\n
Serum Institute of India, a vaccine maker, said it\u2019s working with the University of Oxford and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations on the second shot. The Indian company said that thanks to a master sample from Oxford, it would be able to begin producing doses within 20 to 30 days.<\/p>\n
Still, because of the battery of tests needed before a new vaccine can be given to humans, getting clinical trials underway will probably take many months, CEPI chief executive officer Richard Hatchett said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re back to where we were in 2014 to 2016 with no specific treatment and no specific vaccine,\u201d said Joanne Liu, a professor at McGill University\u2019s School of Population and Global Health. Liu, former president of the humanitarian organisation MSF, helped lead the response to the West Africa outbreak.<\/p>\n
With so little in health authorities\u2019 toolboxes, it might make sense to offer one of the existing vaccines to health workers, she said. There is some evidence from a study in monkeys that the Merck shot, while not designed around the Bundibugyo strain, might provide at least some degree of protection, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so much to ask of people,\u201d she said, noting that the Bundibugyo strain has a 30% to 50% case fatality rate. Offering the vaccine might help health workers want to work in the outbreak, she said.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe expect the numbers to keep increasing given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[190,24752,1853,2245,23268,8231,26524,134,120,7810,3234,111,139,69,10711,4989,17976,2204,13491,3048,35108,11555,223766,180216,698,377],"class_list":["post-437536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-africa","tag-ago","tag-central","tag-early","tag-ebola","tag-event","tag-funeral","tag-health","tag-likely","tag-may","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officials","tag-organisation","tag-outbreak","tag-possibly","tag-probably","tag-said","tag-spread","tag-started","tag-superspreader","tag-undetected","tag-until","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}