Ebola Vaccine Human Trials Begin

securitas writes "The Washington Post reports on the first human to be injected with '100 trillion strands of synthetic' Ebola DNA. The DNA in the vaccine has been bioengineered by Vical to remove 'the part that triggers illness and the part that might allow the DNA to recombine with the DNA of some other virus.' The New York Times, AP via ABC and BBC all have stories about the new vaccine as the WHO reports 11 dead in a new Ebola outbreak in Congo this week. If you're interested in participating in the Ebola clinical trials, the NIH needs 27 volunteers. The study only has two. Best quote comes from the NIH vaccine center's nursing director: 'People freak out about Ebola.' Slashdot previously discussed an Ebola/HIV gene therapy."

Comments

Freaky

[Mr_Silver]

Best quote comes from the NIH vaccine center's nursing director: 'People freak out about Ebola.'

Well, given that ...

Symptoms of the Ebola virus begin 4 to 16 days after the person is infected. Beginning symptoms are headaches, fevers, chills, muscle aches, and loss of appetite. When the disease progresses, patients experience diarrhea, rash, sore throat, vomiting,abdominal pain, and chest pain. The patients have limited kidney and liver functions, and have internal and external bleeding. The blood does not clot which can cause some serious problems. It cause the capillaries to bleed into surrounding tissue. The death of a patient occurs from 8-17 days after an infection.
Source

am I the only one that isn't surprised that people "freak out" about it?

Here Comes the Science...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I so knew that Biology degree would pay off.

Ebola, as viruses go, is incredibly hard to contract. It lacks a carrier state, which means that contraction depends entirely on contact with infected secretions. Unless you're exchanging spit, bodily fluids, or blood, you're safe. As for the vaccine, stating that the "part that causes the virus to replicate" is removed if superfluous. A vaccine by its very nature is a pathogen modified to restrict replication, and in the case of Ebola, that means the ability to attch itself to your RNA, and manifest itself. The only danger from the vaccine would be isolated to the vaccine itself, NOT Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever.