Slashdot Mirror
Vaccine Developed Against Ebola
New submitter Lurching writes "Scientists have developed a vaccine that protects mice against a deadly form of the Ebola virus. First identified in 1976, Ebola fever kills more than 90% of the people it infects. The researchers say that this is the first Ebola vaccine to remain viable long-term and can therefore be successfully stockpiled. The results are reported in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (abstract)."
Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.
The mice will be spared.
I mean, sure, it's against some big ol' treaties but wouldn't the first step be to nullify its effect on your own troops/people?
[/conspiracy]
Not really credible any more for use in fiction, a weaponized version of ebola. Tom Clancy will just have to thing of something else.
But there are 17 labs on Earth working to weaponize Ebola. This vaccine is unlikely to be effective against the weaponized strain because the infectious genes are likely to be cribbed from influenza with completely different modality. Ebola Reston, the only known airborne variety (and considerably less fatal), is unlikely to have been captured by terrorists, but various interests are patrolling Africa seeking samples of emergent strains, including Hezbolla, the Taliban and the CDC. When they get them they will employ the latest gene splicing techniques as well as Mendellian methods to emerge a hemorrhagic virus that's airborne, incubates for three weeks, and kills 90% of the exposed population. Then they will deliberately infect hundreds of martyrs immediately before their pre-approved flights to various US cities, with instructions to commingle with the population as much as they can - unaware they've been infected with the dire virus.
And then our modern world is over. The US doesn't know who did it, so they have to broad-spectrum nuke the rest of the world back to the stone age so the surviving Americans have a chance. And then the virus wipes out most of the survivors in the rest of the world as they come in contact with it. But there was no time to immunize the US, so it too suffered.
So here's the plot: Nation A immunizes their entire population against Ebola, and - thinking they're safe - launches their Ebola dispensing satellites around the world. The Ebola mutates, so while 80% of the Western world is bleeding to death out their anus, only 60% of the rest of the world is. But then the western labs, knowing it's the end - unleash their version of hemorragic influenza on the world, killing 90% of the survivors. The nukes fly, rendering 98% of the planet uninhabitable. Between the evolutions of the virii and the nukes, the world's population is diminished from 7 billions to maybe 1 million.
And then because CO2 output dropped, the glaciers come and pare us back to maybe 100,000.
You see if I experiment with fission to create the elements I need for a nuclear weapon no matter what I do, no matter how I control it, no matter how well it's shielded, the damned thing is going to give off neutrino emissions that make it glow like the sun to spy satellites and uninterested observers the world over. But if I splice genes in my basement nobody knows but me and my precious virii.
Sounds like a party. I'm in.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Finally monkey meat again! :-P
While I'm not trying to diminish the hard work and effort of those involved in developing this vaccine, was this really that necessary?
Ebola is deadly, that is obvious. But that is exactly what makes it a rather limited threat to society. The speed at which death comes in is rapid enough to actually discourage widespread infection, which is why I question the overall benefit in the big picture here when you look at the laundry list of diseases that are killing FAR more people around the globe every day.
Ironic we can find a cure for arguably the deadliest virus known to man, and yet somehow, almost as if it were being (dare I say it) suppressed, we "can't" seem to find a cure for MS, HIV/AIDS, herpes, cancer...even the common cold.
And no, I don't wish to spark some deep scientific debate on how cancer or the common cold is so complex that us laymans cannot even fathom how difficult a task it is compared to Ebola. I see little point in such a debate because I do believe that suppression is going on. One thing is for certain in the medical community. It is far more profitable to treat diseases than to cure them....profitable enough to allow greed and corruption to control research and results.
And here I thought that Hezbollah was a human organization --- now you tell me it's an emergent strain of Ebola? Cute, it even rhymes!
(Next time, check the possible associations in your phrasing.)
<mind wanders>
If only there could be vaccines against (other's) human aggression....
If a lot of people know about the vaccine, it will be harder for them to do that. So be reassured that you know about it. If you are afraid of weaponization, and want to do something about it, post this story on your blog/Facebook. I actually predict most countries are going to stay within the Biological Weapons Convention.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
While the press covers Ebola millions die each year from Malaria. Understandable because the climate of North America and Europe is mostly not tropical but very sad nevertheless.
I wasn't aware that Ebola was still around. thanks for sharing the article. interesting read
I know this is splitting hairs, but the mortality rate across all known subvarieties of Ebola is more like 68%, according to various sources, including Wikipedia's article about it, which means Ebola probably isn't even in the top 10 for highest mortality. Number one is probably rabies, where there is no record of anyone having survived, ever, without medical treatment, and once symptoms of the disease have started appearing, even with the best modern medical care, less than a half-dozen people have survived.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
FTA:
"He said the next step is to try the vaccine on a strain of Ebola that is closer to the one that infects humans."
i.e. they've not yet tested a vaccine for the strains of Ebola (Zaire comes to mind) that infect humans, never mind actually in humans.
My mouse is hemorrhaging blood from all the pores on his body, but at least he doesn't have autism!
This post was brought to you by the considerate folks from the McCarthy Institute of Better Science
"Giese, a teenager from Wisconsin, became the first of only six patients known to have survived symptomatic rabies without receiving the rabies vaccine."
Source: Milwaukee protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Seriously, just what we need, more humans running around.
Doctors, nurses and others really take a serious risk in trying to help patients infected with this virus. Now those who are likely to be called in during an outbreak can be inoculated in advance of the emergencies. Ebola is such a wicked virus and so difficult to control that this is a real blessing to humanity.