Ebola

[peppy]

I don't think I am posting this correctly, but you get the idea.


http://news.aol.com/article/scientist-gets-vaccine-after-ebola-scare/401851?icid=main|main|dl1|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fnews. aol.com%2Farticle%2Fscientist-gets-vaccine-after-ebola-scare%2F401851


Scientist Gets Experimental Ebola Vaccine
By MELISSA EDDY and MIKE STOBBE
,
AP
posted: 3 HOURS 58 MINUTES AGO
comments: 196
filed under: Science News, World News
PrintShare
Text SizeAAA
BERLIN (March 27) - It was a nightmare scenario: A scientist accidentally pricked her finger with a needle used to inject the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice. Within hours, members of a tightly bound, yet far-flung community of virologists, biologists and others were tensely gathered in a trans-Atlantic telephone conference trying to map out a way to save her life.
Less than 24 hours later, an experimental vaccine — never before tried on humans — was on its way to Germany from a lab in Canada.
Skip over this content
One False Move
Jochen Koppelmeyer, UKE/AP
9 photos

Previous

Next
Lab Mishap: A German scientist accidentally jabbed her finger with a needle used to inject the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice on March 12. The 45-year-old woman, who was treated in the quarantine unit shown here, was given an experimental vaccine never before tried on humans. So far, she remains healthy. Click for other dangerous and deadly mistakes.
(Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker)
And within 48 hours of the March 12 accident, the at-risk scientist, a 45-year-old woman whose identity has not been revealed, was injected with the vaccine.
So far, so good. If the woman is still healthy by Thursday, she can consider herself safe.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever, seen mostly only in Africa, is one of the world's most feared diseases. It begins with flu-like symptoms, followed by bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Days later, some victims begin bleeding through the nose, mouth and eyes. Depending on the strain of virus, it can kill up to 90 percent of victims.
There is no cure. The virus is spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person.
Dr. Stephan Guenther, head of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, where the researcher was working, said tests so far show the scientist is healthy and free of the virus.
The peak period for an outbreak during the 21-day Ebola incubation period passed this week, he said.
"We are now on the downside," Guenther told The Associated Press, noting that with each passing day the chance of infection taking root diminishes.
It's not entirely clear the researcher was actually infected with the virus. At the time of the accident, she was wearing three layers of protective gloves, and though the needle stuck her, the plunger of the syringe was not pushed so it's not certain the virus entered her bloodstream.
That means scientists may never know if the vaccine worked or she was just lucky.
There are two other known accidents involving researchers who came into direct contact with a similar strain of Ebola. A Russian researcher died, and a British scientist became ill but survived.
Skip over this content
After the needle stick, Guenther knew he had to act swiftly.
He rushed an e-mail to fellow scientists in the Ebola research community. One was Dr. Heinz Feldmann, chief of the virology laboratory at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a U.S. National Institutes of Health research facility in Hamilton, Mont.
"We considered this as serious as (the Russian) case, in terms of the exposure," Feldmann told the AP in a telephone interview last weekend.
Feldmann was part of an international group of experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the Canadian Public Health Agency, Boston University and the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Feldmann, Guenther and several other experts took part in the teleconference debating the options. These included a live vaccine never before tried on humans, another treatment designed to interfere with the virus' ability to multiply, or an anticoagulant that Army research found had saved the lives of monkeys exposed to Ebola.
The option that emerged as the strongest was the vaccine, which had been developed by Feldmann and collaborating researchers at several institutions. Much of the key work was done about nine years ago at a microbiology research lab run by the Canadian government in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Feldmann worked at the time.
Although the vaccine is based on a different kind of virus, researchers used genetic engineering to make the virus look like Ebola, triggering an immune system response.
In a 2008 study, Feldmann and other researchers showed that when given 20 minutes after a lethal dose of Ebola virus, four of eight monkeys survived. There were no side effects, Feldmann said.
"The group came very swiftly to agreement that this vaccine would be the best ... because it had showed an effectiveness when used after exposure," Guenther said.
In the end, the scientist whose life was at risk made the decision herself. She took the vaccine about 48 hours after the accident. Within 12 hours, she had a headache, muscle pain and a fever, but recovered quickly.
"Those are normal reactions to live attenuated vaccines," Feldmann said.

[tabs]

Whoopy we are all gona die!

[onewhippedpuppy]

How long before she becomes a zombie?

[peppy]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

How long before she becomes a zombie?

I think the vaccine may be working, or she was never infected.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by peppy

I think the vaccine may be working, or she was never infected.

Fool! Didn't you see "I am Legend"?

[peppy]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Fool! Didn't you see "I am Legend"?

No, sorry.

A lot of things go over my head.

[tabs]

Doesn't Legend die in the end?

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by peppy

I don't think I am posting this correctly, but you get the idea.

That's an impressive story. It takes some big ones hanging there (yes, even for a chick) to mess with Ebola in a Biolevel suite, but it takes giant ones to inject yourself with an unknown, untested, totally experimental vaccine.

In the end, the scientist whose life was at risk made the decision herself.

No other way around this, morally.


Read "The Hot Zone" and, to a lesser extent, "Demon in the Freezer" by Richard Preston. Non-fiction documentaries on the Ebola fight, and the time that it almost broke loose in the US.

[onewhippedpuppy]

"The Hot Zone" was a great book. "Outbreak" was a great book as well, the movie was crap.