The Public Health Agency of Canada announced Saturday that it will ship 800 vials of its experimental EBOLA vaccine, VSV-EBOV to the World Health Organization (WHO). As a precautionary measure, the agency said the vaccine vials will be sent in three separate shipments. With this update, is the cure for EBOLA finally found?
The cure for EBOLA is seemed to be found as Canada ships its experimental vaccine to WHO. Due to the challenges in moving a vaccine that must be kept at a very low temperature, the vaccines will be sent in separate batches. According to International Business Times, the human clinical trial of experimental VSV-EBOV vaccine will start Monday after previously being shown effective in other primates.
Human trials are beginning for an experimental vaccination against the EBOLA virus. An estimated 40 healthy volunteers will take part in a clinical trial to aid determine the vaccine's safety, side effects and appropriate dosages. The vaccine, which is considered as EBOLA's cure, was found, developed and made in Canada.
Federal health Minister Rona Ambrose called the trials as promising news in the fight against the world's worst EBOLA outbreak. As part of a procedure, the minister said the trials are moving at exceptional promptness and results of the first phase are expected in December. And the hope is the vaccine could be the "found" cure and can be set out soon.
The minister reported Canada has contributed $35 million through a series of aid to West Africa, where over 9,000 people have been infected and more than 4,000 have already died of the deadly EBOLA virus.
"Canada has long been a world leader in EBOLA research," she said. "If the EBOLA vaccine is shown to be safe and effective, it will stop this devastating outbreak."
Canada's Public Health Agency is providing the vaccine in its role as the global coordinating body for the EBOLA outbreak, so the vaccine found, which appeared to be a possible cure for the virus, can be made available as a comprehensive resource.
"This vaccine, the product of many years of scientific research and innovation, could be an important tool in curbing the outbreak," Canada's chief public health officer Gregory Taylor said through a statement. "We will continue to work closely with the WHO to address some of the ethical and logistical issues around using this experimental vaccine in the fight against EBOLA."
The vaccine found, which seemed to be a promising cure for EBOLA, is a combination of a weakened version of the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), found in animals including cattle and horses, and EBOLA virus-protein. As said by the University Of Wisconsin School Of Veterinary Medicine, VSV is zoonotic which can be transferred from animals to humans. Infected humans develop flulike symptoms. The VSV-EBOV vaccine causes an immune system response that produces antibodies against the EBOLA protein, comparable to a flu shot mechanism.
The said vaccine was developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada and Iowa-based NewLinks Genetic Corp. holds the license and will arrange the clinical trials for the vaccine. The first VSV-EBOV vaccine shipment to the World Health Organization in Geneva will be made Monday, Oct. 20, 2014.
Canada has been a forerunner for finding cure for the virus and at the lead of EBOLA drug development, with TKM-EBOLA and ZMapp also being developed in the nation with the support of U.S. funding and partnerships. ZMapp was recently used on the Spanish nurse Teresa Romero, who was infected Oct. 6. Meanwhile, a second vaccine is also in the works in Canada.
In addition, another experimental vaccine is being produced by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline alongside the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and human trials have occurred in Africa.
Currently, though, it's uncertain if the vaccine, the possible EBOLA-cure found in Canada, will ever reach people in West Africa while critics say the trials didn't ensue nearly fast enough.
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