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.

There's no Ebola exposure here

[vykor]

This clinical trial doesn't involve the exposure of testers to live Ebola virus. That would be wholly unethical given the lethality of the disease. No trial of that sort would have any chance of being approved. This study just tries to prove the vaccine's safety for human use.

In the article it specifically notes "Volunteers will not be exposed to Ebola virus." No live virus was involved in the manufacturing process either.

Because of the ethical problems involved in any human clinical trial with real live virus, they'll probably use the "two-animal" rule in that if it protects at least two animal species from the virus, it's considered valid. Once this study proves safety, then it'll be licensed. The real trial would begin if they ever use this in the next Ebola outbreak.

nothing compared to things like smallpox

[AssFace]

My uncle is a quiet and reserved guy. He works with highly infectious agents as his job - space suits and special rooms - that whole deal.
For Christmas back in the day he gave me The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. I read it that weekend and then asked him about ebola - my uncle is one of the team that they send to the part of the world that is having some new outbreak - ebola is one of his specialties.
He was in the Peace Corps in Zaire back when then first discovered ebola, and even met his wife that way when they were both in the same tent recovering from malaria.

He said ebola was really nothing to worry about since it killed its host so fast. He said that it was indeed a bad thing if you ever got it, and it does need to be contained, but it dies very quickly outside of its host, and it kills its host too quickly.

He also noted that AIDS isn't particularly impressive either. It dies quickly outside of the person as well.

He isn't discounting the viruses by any means - just in terms of the scary stuff that he works with, he wasn't as scared by those and they are on different containment levels than other things.

He mentioned smallpox as being horrible.

I am now finishing up Richard Preston's The Demon in the Freezer and I must say that it is very interesting (his books all seem to be written in a way that you can finish them in an unnerving weekend).

Smallpox in itself is scary stuff, and then the bioengineered completely resistant smallpox is really freaky.
Anthrax is nothing compared to this stuff - anthrax can kill its host, but it is not contagious from that sick host - if someone with anthrax coughs in the same room as you, you don't then get anthrax. Whereas one person with smallpox can infect an extremely large area around them very quickly - and they don't necessarily show any signs of having it but are capable of spreading it in the first few days of being infected.

Personally, I would much rather die of a drug overdose while having sex with supermodels than have to die of any of these viruses.
Hopefully the chances of either being my final exit are equally slim.