Ebola Vaccine On The Horizon?

coryboehne writes "A highly interesting article on the CBS news website gives some very promising information on a fast acting single-shot Ebola vaccine. This is an important step because it will allow an outbreak of Ebola to be stopped quickly."

Comments

HORRAY, EBOLA KILLS INNOCENT NIGGERS!

[Anonymous Coward]

GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America. You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

This post brought to you by CaptBDick, a proud member of the GNAA

G_____________________________________naann_______ ________G
N_____________________________nnnaa__nanaaa_______ ________N
A____________________aanana__nannaa_nna_an________ ________A
A_____________annna_nnnnnan_aan_aa__na__aa________ ________A
G____________nnaana_nnn__nn_aa__nn__na_anaann_MERI CA______G
N___________ana__nn_an___an_aa_anaaannnanaa_______ ________N
A___________aa__ana_nn___nn_nnnnaa___ana__________ ________A
A__________nna__an__na___nn__nnn___SSOCIATION_of__ ________A
G__________ana_naa__an___nnn______________________ ________G
N__________ananan___nn___aan_IGGER________________ ________N
A__________nnna____naa____________________________ ________A
A________nnaa_____anan____________________________ ________A
G________anaannana________________________________ ________G
N________ananaannn_AY_____________________________ ________N
A________ana____nn_________IRC-EFNET-#GNAA________ ________A
A_______nn_____na_________________________________ ________A
*_______aaaan_____________________________________ ________*
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam mollis, libero non facilisis vehicula, quam sem fermentum urna, at porttitor neque odio nec purus. Morbi felis. Mauris arcu turpis, dignissim sed, tristique sit amet, e

Ebola vaccine exists, but it is inconvenient

[KingPrad]

They already have an Ebola vaccine that works in monkeys. It isn't convenient enough to use large-scale however. It takes multiple shots spread over months and it takes 8 months to build up real immunity to Ebola.

It will be good if one of these research teams succeed in making a fast-acting single-shot vaccine. They talked about this on NPR this morning on Morning Edition I think. www.npr.org

Food and drug admin

[brokencomputer]

If this vaccine is going to be tested in Africa why does it need approval by the FDA?

Re:Food and drug admin

[aridhol]

Because it's being developed in the USA.

Article error

[aridhol]

From the article:

Health workers in Africa -- the only place the few outbreaks have occurred -- might be the most likely recipients of an approved Ebola vaccine.

Actually, there was an outbreak in Reston, Virginia. My wife is doing her Ph.D work on that strain. But it's not her lab in the article.

Re:Article error

[Anonymous Coward]

The incident in Virginia wasn't an outbreak. The strain (now called Ebola Reston) spread through a population of imported monkeys in 1989. Six people seroconverted, but none developed any filovirus-related illness from their exposure to Ebola Reston.

In order for it to be considered an "outbreak," human beings have to get sick. They didn't.

Ebola is actually no big deal, immunologically speaking. It's hard to contract, and it requires a massive viral load before the patient becomes symptomatic. Patients that superconvert often die horribly, but the likelihood that any given exposure will turn into a superconversion are miniscule.

Re:Article error

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about your lab but in ours an outbreak is an outbreak whether humans are involved or not. Granted one usually makes a distinction by specifying an outbreak in an animal facility or an epizootic or whatever but human disease is not a prerequisite. And that means there have been several in the US and one in Italy, not counting the facility in the Philippines where it all got started. By the way the new taxonomy has this species (no its not a strain) being called Reston ebola virus.

Oh as for being "no big deal immunologically speaking" uh yeah if you don't mind having all your cytokines thrown out of wack and your macrophages killed off!
As for hard to get, that depends on your standards. In an African hospital with one reusable needle its not nearly as hard as you might think. Finally, what the heck is superconverting? Did you make that up? What I do know is that just 1 particle is thought to be sufficient to establish an infection, the result of which is then that you are probably going to die, and that's not pretty for anybody!

28 Days Later...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or did other people feel wierd about the monkeys being infected with Ebola 28 days after being given the vaccine...

Re:28 Days Later...

[lylfyl]

Actually, I'm in the middle of re-reading 'Rainbow Six', so the first thing I thought was "I am not getting that vaccination!"

Freaky movie, though

Wow. Only 4 comments so far

[nortcele]

It would appear that Ebola is not "News for Nerds". Geeks are likely only interested in diseases that are contracted other than by human proximity or contact.

pretty cool trick.

[fireduck]

a more informative write up can be found at nature (there's a link to the actual research at the bottom, for those whose institutions suscribe).

rather than infect the host with dead/weakened ebola, they took the ebola gene that is responsible for making the coat protein (the capsid which surrounds the nucleic material), and inserted that gene into the adenovirus genome. andenovirus infects cell. ebola gene is activated and starts making lots of ebola coat protein. host response kicks in and starts making antibodies for both adenovirus proteins as well as ebola proteins (apparently adenovirus triggers big host response, although adenovirus really isn't that dangerous). host now has a plethora of ebola antibodies.

this particular trick should be useful for almost any virus for which the coat protein genes are known.

Cheap?

[tsa]

Health workers in Africa -- the only place the few outbreaks have occurred -- might be the most likely recipients of an approved Ebola vaccine.

Let's hope the medicine will be so cheap that the locals can afford it too. Sadly this will most probably not be the case.

Re:Cheap?

[brokencomputer]

I would hope that it be provided for free to the inhabitants. I geuss the government is more concerned with antiterrorism funds even though a lot more people are dieing from diseases and starvation in Africa and even in the US(cancer especially)!

Re:Cheap?

[mugnyte]

Well I guess you wouldn't mind paying for it. everyone wants to "shift funds" from perceived unimportant ideas to their dear-at-heart ones, but without moving existing money, would you support higher taxes for this? Not many people would.

It's not that [all] people are greedy bastards [all the time], but our western system of capitalism demands money as the bringer of survival, and then leisure choices. Almost a basic need at the bottom. So, having the government pay for this is not my favorite idea.

Instead, the companies that produce and market, ship, administer and follow up on this concept should be reimbursed. Howabout we are given ownership of the land these people live (and die) on? "your jungle or your life" ? Ok, call me the greedy bastard.

mug

One-Time Vaccine

[Jonsey]

"Sure! It's only one shot, and it'll guarentee that you'll never get Ebola again in the rest of your life!"

...

Wait a minute.

(Humor through obscurity, it's fantastic)

Not News...This guy is known for shoddy/shady work

[jeeves99]

I'm hesitant to accept this guy's work. He's made similar claims in the past that never panned out. Now he's claiming that the booster shot is enough to promote resistance, even when other researchers have already tried and discounted this possibility. So whats so special about his monkeys that made the vaccine "work"? I wouldn't put too much faith in this finding until an independent group has confirmed it via repeating the study. He's either just boosted his career to new highs, or he's just killed it. Time will tell.

Excellent! I need it

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been bleeding profusely from all of my orifices for the past hour...I'm hoping for a quick fix
Please upload it to an FTP server
Thanx

Excellent analysis

[Hard_Code]

"This is an important step because it will allow an outbreak of Ebola to be stopped quickly."

I love this type of insightful analysis on Slashdot. :)

Re:Wow. Only 4 comments so far

[I Like Swords!!!]

What is this Ebola virus everyone keeps talking about? Is it dangerous? What files do I need to download to add to my anti-virus scanner? I don't want to get my system infect with Ebola if I can help it.