Ebola News 2/2

[Buster's Uncle]

In pursuit of next-generation Ebola stockpile vaccines
Reuters
By Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler  7 hours ago



Research assistant Georgina Bowyer works on a vaccine for Ebola at The Jenner Institute in Oxford, southern England January 16, 2015. Photograph taken January 16, 2015. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh



LONDON (Reuters) - As West Africa's devastating Ebola outbreak begins to dwindle, scientists are looking beyond the endgame at the kind of next-generation vaccines needed for a vital stockpile to hit another epidemic hard and fast.

Determined not to lose scientific momentum that could make the world's first effective Ebola interventions a reality, researchers say the shots, as well as being proven to work, must be cheap, easy to handle in Africa and able to hit multiple virus strains.

That may mean shifting focus from the stripped-down, fast-tracked vaccine development ideas that have dominated the past six months, but it mustn't mean the field gets bogged down in complexities.

"We need a stockpile because there will be other outbreaks," said Seth Berkley, chief executive of the GAVI global immunisation alliance, which helps bulk-buy vaccines for poor countries.

The experimental vaccines now moving into large clinical trials in West Africa target the current Ebola Zaire virus strain, but the next outbreak may be different.

"We need to work with the pharmaceutical industry to create second-generation vaccines that would cover not just Ebola Zaire but also Ebola Sudan and perhaps Marburg, perhaps Lassa. The idea is to have vaccines that will work across different places," Berkley said.

Right now, scientists are grappling with several tricky issues -- partly due to success in cutting new infections in the vast Ebola outbreak.

With relatively few new cases, big trials in Liberia and Sierra Leone to test the first generation single-dose one strain vaccines may not have the statistical power needed to show whether the shots work. [ID:nL6N0V308D]

And already, early data from safety trials in humans suggest a single-dose vaccination with the most advanced vaccine, from GlaxoSmithKline, may not provoke an immune response strong enough to protect people exposed to the virus.[ID:nL6N0V63GO]

"We now know you get around 10 times fewer antibodies in humans (than in monkeys) and probably five times fewer T-cells," said Adrian Hill of Oxford's Jenner Institute, referring to two key elements of the immune system.

This strongly suggests that a two-dose regime, or a so-called "prime-boost" approach, is the one likely to prove effective, Hill said.


SIZEABLE CHALLENGE

These and other issues add up to a sizeable to do list for scientists focussing on vaccines for future stockpiles.

Producing multi-strain, or multivalent, vaccines that could protect against different types of Ebola and other haemorrhagic fevers will be more time consuming than making today's monovalent shots, but it is by no means impossible.

In fact, several of the candidate Ebola vaccines being fast-tracked through testing started out as multivalents before being stripped back to deal with the current outbreak.

Another challenge is ensuring vaccines have a long shelf-life and can be easily transported in the tropics. At the moment, test shots are kept at -70 or -80 degrees Celsius, although Johnson & Johnson says its Ebola vaccine can be stored at normal fridge temperature for many weeks.

Producing adequate volumes, however, looks manageable. Hopefully, the next time Ebola emerges from Africa's forests it will be spotted earlier and immunisation will be needed for perhaps tens of thousands of people -- nothing like the tens of millions who would need vaccines in a worldwide flu pandemic.

Finally companies still need a regulatory green light, which gets tricky if large-scale trials fail to produce clear proof that the shots are both safe and effective in people.

Researchers and drugmakers say, however, that regulators have made clear stockpile Ebola vaccines could be approved on efficacy data from tests in monkeys or other non-human primates plus proof of safety and immune response in humans, reflecting contingency plans for vaccines designed for bioterror attacks.

Pursuing tomorrow's vaccines is not to say one of today's monovalent shots from GSK, Merck or J&J might not yet have a role in ring-fencing lingering pockets of infection in the current epidemic, and perhaps finally stamping it out.

"I'm pretty optimistic there's still a role for vaccination in ending this outbreak," said Hill. "And I'm certainly optimistic that we'll learn for the next outbreak which of these vaccine approaches is the most likely to work, and be ready to tackle it early on."


http://news.yahoo.com/pursuit-next-generation-ebola-stockpile-vaccines-072529204--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Second British health worker tested for Ebola in London
Reuters  4 hours ago



LONDON (Reuters) - A second British military healthcare worker has been flown back to England from Sierra Leone following the likely exposure to the Ebola virus, a government agency said on Monday.

Public Health England said the worker had likely been exposed to the virus from a needle injury while treating a patient with Ebola. The worker has not been diagnosed with the virus and does not have any symptoms.

Another healthcare worker was flown back on Saturday following a similar injury and both are being tested at the Royal Free hospital in London.

"Although we have had two similar incidents within a short space of time both appear to be unrelated," minister for the Armed Forces Mark Francois said in a statement.

"Our personnel receive the highest standard of training and briefing prior to deployment, including on the use of the specialized Personal Protective Equipment".

Two other Britons have already been successfully treated at the Royal Free hospital for the virus and have been released.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)


http://news.yahoo.com/second-british-health-worker-tested-ebola-london-104752882.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia begins clinical trial for Ebola vaccines as outbreak ebbs
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue  Mon Feb 2, 2015 3:05pm GMT



 
MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia began a trial of experimental Ebola vaccines on Monday, involving thousands of volunteers as part of an effort to slow the spread of the deadly haemorrhagic fever and prevent future outbreaks.
 
The epidemic has killed more than 8,800 people in West Africa since it began more than a year ago, overwhelming weak healthcare systems in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Its spread now appears to be slowing, especially in Liberia which currently has just a handful of cases.
 
The trial to test two vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline and New Link/Merck began at the government-run Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, a cluster of cement blocks in the teeming New Kru Town neighbourhood that was one of the first parts of the capital to be struck by the disease.
 
"I do not want for Ebola to affect my family and so I have come to volunteer," said Zolu McGill, among the first batch of four volunteers seen at the hospital by a Reuters reporter.
 
Scientists say the study, a final stage trial which hopes to involve 27,000 volunteers at the heart of the epidemic after earlier safety trials in the UK, United States and other African countries, could be a turning point in the fight against the deadly virus, which has no known cure.
 
But given relatively few new cases in the dwindling outbreak, researchers are concerned the trial in Liberia, plus another planned in Sierra Leone, may not have the statistical power needed to show whether the shots work. [ID:nL6N0V308D]
 
Volunteers will receive a small compensation package. Each of the vaccines contains a small harmless portion of the Ebola virus and may cause side effects in some people such as pain, redness, fever, headaches, mouth sores, tiredness, muscle, joint pain and loss of appetite.
 
The Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccines (Prevail) says healthy volunteers above 18 years old who have no previous history of the virus will be selected.
 
 
HOPES OF DEFEATING EBOLA
 
Vice President Joseph Boakai said in a speech on Sunday attended by dignitaries that he hoped the successful development of drugs would prevent any other country from suffering the devastation experienced by Liberia.
 
"It's our conviction that from this worthy exercise humankind will prevail over the deadly killer of man," he said.
 
The slowdown in the epidemic is already hampering drug development. Chimerix Inc said on Friday it was stopping participation in clinical studies in Liberia of a drug, brincidofovir, to treat people who already have Ebola, citing the slump in new cases. [ID:nL4N0V98ER]
 
With that in mind, and looking ahead to future potential outbreaks, scientists are thinking about how to develop and test second-generation Ebola vaccines, which could be used to prevent more strains of the disease than the current fast-tracked shots.[ID:nL6N0VB0SK]
 
Some scientists and aid workers are calling for trials to begin promptly in neighbouring Sierra Leone where transmission hotspots exist around the capital Freetown.
 
The U.S. ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac, said that cooperation on the vaccines represented an opportunity for greater cooperation between the two countries on clinical research and developing the Liberian health system.
 
"It's fantastic that large-scale trials of the first candidate Ebola vaccine are getting underway in Liberia, a country that has suffered enormously at the hands of this disease," said Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, which is funding a trial of the GSK vaccine in Britain and Mali.
 
 
(Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Sophie Walker)


http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0L61FW20150202?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0