For the past few months, researchers in the field of pharmacology and immunology have frantically struggled towards finding an effective treatment or cure to the 2014 Ebola outbreak. But it's not entirely new research begin with in the first place. Since the original outbreak of Ebola in West Africa during the 1970's, researchers at labs worldwide have tried unsuccessfully to study and cure the pestilent virus. So with the help of a little new knowledge, a global need knocking down the door, and a strong basis in creation of vaccines, researchers today are able to look towards a potential immunization practice that may better safe than sorry.
Over the past few months, researchers worldwide have frantically struggled towards finding an effective treatment or cure to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, as bodies continue to line the streets of countries in Africa's western provinces. Known as "Hemorrhagic Fever" for the final stages of the viral infection, Ebola has proven to be a complex pathogen, with an extremely lethal prognosis of 90% incidence of fatality after transmission. And as researchers turn to contemporary methods of viral treatment, they are finding that the complexities of this virus' infection plan may just be as deadly as HIV.
Thought to have been originally transmitted by consumption of African monkeys, a widely eaten delicacy known as bushmeat, Ebola carries similar origins to the global killer HIV and even worse symptoms. Transmittable by blood or mucosal secretions, Ebola has spread in the unsanitary conditions of West Africa, and researchers fear that given time the virus may evolve the ability to be transmitted through the air.
Once infected, the symptomatic stages of Ebola appear swiftly and escalate from simple influenza-like symptoms to hemorrhagic death. The hemorrhagic, bleeding stage, of Ebola typically begins 5 to 7 days after infection, and presents itself in vomiting blood and subcutaneous bleeding, underneath the skin and into organs like the eyes.
And while no modern vaccine has been able to combat the deadly virus at fault, researchers today say that they may have an answer. And another two-pronged vaccination pack may just beat out the inefficiency of the single vaccines being administered in clinical trials worldwide.
While administration, and developing a cost effective vaccine, may be challenges for the future, researchers say that the two-pronged attack is not entirely unlike anything you've seen before. With the Ebola epidemic growing exponentially, there is a necessity for such a vaccine that a single shot could be simply tested and deployed, but for those in need of an added kick to stimulate your immune system an additional "booster" would then be administered a few weeks later.
"It is cumbersome, because you need two vaccines" chief scientific officer, Paul Stoffels says. " But it is clear that you will get the best protection, both short and long term, from an added prime-boost."
Though researchers are still looking for cost-effective combined vaccinations, so that a single dosage would be a possible option available for all nations, the teams believe firmly that areas such as West Africa, where co-infections with diseases like malaria suppress immunological responses, that the efficacy of the added protection against the virus may just work to boost the worst cases in area.
"There is now more and more talk about what we can do to prolong vaccine protection" Ebola researcher at GlaxoSmithKline, Ripley Balllou says. "This disease is going to be endemic in West Africa, and so it's important for those countries either to have routine vaccinations or a stockpile option [as well]."
