The vaccine was tested only in monkeys, but it could be a significant development because doctors currently have nothing to treat or prevent infections. The current Ebola outbreak in Uganda has killed 145 people. Since it first appeared in 1976, the virus has killed more than 800, infecting nearly 1,100. The disease causes its victims to bleed to death within days of infection. The vaccine was created by Dr. Gary Nabel and colleagues at the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health.
Research appears in the journal Nature.
We found that it's possible to protect against the lethal effects of the Ebola virus in a primate model. Nabel and his colleagues tested the vaccine in four monkeys. All of them survived after being infected with the virus, but four others that didn't get the vaccine died when they were given Ebola. The vaccine contains two parts. The first is a genetic vaccine made up of strands of DNA from Ebola and is designed to prime the immune system.