Geneva - Human tests of two possible Ebola vaccines have
proven safe and efficacy tests will begin within weeks in the
three west African countries ravaged by the deadly virus, the
World Health Organization said Friday.
"These trials are about to begin for the two lead vaccines," WHO
assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny told reporters,
adding that the vaccines would be tested on thousands of people
across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Phase III testing to ensure the vaccines actually protect
against the virus that has killed 8,259 people in the three
countries is set to begin in Liberia by the end of the month, she
said.
Separate tests are scheduled to start in Sierra Leone and Guinea
in February, she added.
Also read: 'Containment of Ebola a major achievement in 2014'
The vaccine manufacturers must determine before then what the
appropriate dosage is, she said.
There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola, and the WHO
has endorsed rushing potential ones through trials in a bid to
stem the epidemic.
The two potential vaccines that have been undergoing Phase 1
safety tests on humans are ChAd3, made by Britain's
GlaxoSmithKline, and VSV-ZEBOV, manufactured by the Public
Health Agency of Canada and licenced by US firm NewLink
Genetics.
Tests of the two potential vaccines have been conducted on
volunteers in a range of countries, including Switzerland, Mali,
Gabon, Britain, Germany, Canada and the United States.
Johnson & Johnson meanwhile announced this week that human
trials of its proposed vaccine had begun in Britain, and Kieny said
the company also expected to soon be able to start efficacy
trials.
Describing 2014 as the year when "the Ebola virus challenged
humanity," Kieny voiced confidence that this year would be
remembered as the one when "humanity used our best scientific
minds to fight back."
In a feat that calls to mind the memory-tweaking technology in the film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a team of researchers restored "lost memories" in the brains of mice. The mice in the study were given a drug that prevented them from consolidating a fearful memory. But when neurons involved in encoding the memory were stimulated with pulses of light, the animals were able to retrieve the forgotten recollection. In some forms of amnesia, past memories may not be erased, but may just be inaccessible for recall, said Susumu Tonegawa, director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan and co-author of the study, said in a statement. If the findings are confirmed in humans, the knowledge could benefit people who suffer from retrograde amnesia, an inability to recall memories that were made before the amnesia, which is common in traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease and other brain disorders. Scientists have long debated whether retrograde ...
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