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Ebola Vaccine News & Update: First Effective Vaccine Found, Might Stop Next Outbreak

By Arah TJ | Update Date: Dec 30, 2016 10:16 AM EST

The first Ebola vaccine named as rVSV-ZEBOV has shown impressive results in the final trial and it could just be the answer to the Ebola outbreak in Africa. Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, who helped test the vaccine delivered the news on Thursday that the medicine's efficacy during the experiements was 100 percent. 

If placed in a group much larger than the test group, then the efficacy sits somewhere between 70 to 100 percent, according to the scientist. 

Back in 2015, the biostatistician and his team tested the rVSV-ZEBOV on about 4,000 people in Guinea during the time it was spreading in the country. This group were at high risk of getting the virus because they had contact with someone who was infected.

After they were vaccinated, many of them reportedly did not get ill, which would mean that they were protected from the disease. However, some patients experienced side effects, which included fever and an allergic reaction, according to Daily Trust.

Despite the effects, the studies hope to get biological samples from people who have taken the vaccine so the immune response can be analyzed.  

As of writing this article, rVSV-ZEBOV is not yet approved by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. However, the researchers predict that the Ebola vaccine can be used in 2018.

But for NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, there are still some questions about the drug that need to be answered. "If you give health care workers the vaccine, for example, how long would they be protected? That's very important to learn," Fauci said at the National Institutes of Health. 

The Ebola outbreak struck West Africa a few years ago, and it became a major concern as there was no vaccine for it. More than 11,000 people have died, while nearly 30,000 were infected, according to WBEZ Org.

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