A team of scientists has designed a vaccine against Ebola that achieves 80 percent protection in mice exposed to the virus. The results of this trial have been published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and open the door to the development of a vaccine that can be used in humans.
The researchers built the immune complex from a protein from the virus. To enhance its effect, the protein was linked to a compound that increases the immune response of the treated animals. Different candidate substances were tested, and the most effective one turned out to be polycytidyl acid, a polymer that has also been used in cancer research.
Ebola viral hemorrhagic fever is an infectious disease that causes very serious internal bleeding. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,800 people have suffered from the disease in recent years. At the moment, there are only palliative methods to treat the disease, and there are few laboratories in the world equipped to work with this virus. Compared to other types of vaccines consisting of the inoculation of the attenuated virus, this would have the advantage of being cheaper, stable and easy to store.
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