An experimental Ebola vaccine completely protected people from the killer virus at the end of the west African epidemic, researchers report.
They used the same strategy that was used to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. Called ring vaccination, it calls for vaccinating people who have been in contact with patients, and contacts of contacts.
It worked, the team led by the World Health Organization found.
“Vaccine efficacy was 100 percent,” they wrote in their report, published in Friday’s issue of the Lancet medical journal.
“While these compelling results come too late for those who lost their lives during West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, they show that when the next Ebola outbreak hits, we will not be defenseless,” said WHO’s Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, who led the trial.
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