The Ebola epidemic days may be behind us as reports state that an experimental vaccine for the deadly disease has proved to be almost 100 percent effective against the contagious infection.
The success of the vaccine is a major milestone in the scientific research and can stop any future outbreaks of the disease. The Ebola epidemic, which started in December 2013 in Guinea, was termed the deadliest ever and majorly affected the lives of people in West African countries of Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Reports state that although the vaccine has not yet been approved by any regulatory authority, it is considered so effective that the researchers have already created an emergency stockpile of around 300,000 doses of it to use in any future flare-up of the disease which killed thousands of people in West Africa.
Ever since Ebola was discovered in the former Zaire in 1976, researchers have been trying to formulate an effective vaccine with little success. The sense of urgency of coming up with vaccine usually dissipated due to lack of funding over the years. However, after Ebola struck Africa in 2013 and killed around 11,000 people in the most horrific ways, the urgency was renewed and the researchers set to work again with global funding for the vaccine.
This is the first vaccine which has proved to work so well. It was said to be so effective that the testing was stopped early when the interim results of its effectiveness came out. The vaccine has been developed by the Canadian government and is now licensed to the U.S.-based Merck & Co. Merck.
Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever transmitted by the Ebola viruses. The virus spreads by direct contact with body fluids of an infected person or an animal. It has killed over 11,000 people globally since its outbreak in December 2013 and affected over 28,000 people.
