Highly Effective Ebola Vaccine Now Available, 100% Protection Ensured

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The deadly disease ebola is preventable now with a highly effective vaccine called rVSV-EBOV. The vaccine is partially prepared in National Microbiology Laboratory, Canada.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a deadly disease which is caused by one of the Ebola virus species. Humans and primates like monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas are possibly infected with it. Though it is a rare disease but its outbreak can claim thousands of lives.

A major clinical trial of new vaccine took place in Guinea's coastal region of Basse-Guinée where new ebola cases were still existent at the time of the experiment. The experiment was launched in 2015 and 5,837 people were vaccinated, reports Yahoo.

From the entire vaccinated people, none got infected from the virus till 10 days or more after the vaccination.  That signals a remarkable 100 percent protection rate. The results are published on Thursday in the medical journal Lancet.

The largest Ebola epidemic in history swept through West Africa during 2014 and 2015 which resulted in 11,300 people dead and more than 15,000 lab-confirmed cases.  The mortality rate had reached up to 80 percent.

The vaccine of Ebola works with the same strategy that was used to eradicated smallpox. This is ring strategy in which an infected person is identified. Then, clusters or rings of another family member who is in close contact with him are vaccinated. This way all family members, friends and neighbors of those contacts are vaccinated.

Gary Kobinger who spent seven months in West Africa during the height of the epidemic, and worked at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg on the initial vaccine calls the new vaccine result is a "phenomenal news," writes CBC.

Kobinger is strongly optimistic that there will never be a deadly epidemic again like the one that happened in 2015 in West Africa. This vaccine is a bulwark that will contribute to preventing and controlling an Ebola outbreak in a faster and more effective manner.