The United Nations isn’t letting a good crisis go to waste, having recently endorsed the use of untested, experimental Ebola vaccines being rushed to market as this is typed. Agence France-Presse reports that the vaccines, which are bypassing the normal testing and approval process, should be ready in bulk by early 2015 for use in West Africa.
Two vaccines in particular, one manufactured by British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the other by U.S.-based NewLink Genetics, are being accelerated through clinical trials, according to World Health Organization (WHO) Assistant Director General Marie-Paule Kieny. If all goes as planned, the jabs will be available to health workers as early as November.
“If everything goes well, we may be able to begin using some of these vaccines in some of the affected countries at the very beginning of next year,” stated Kieny to the media.
Good luck finding W.African guinea pigs to voluntarily accept that vaccine. Since the Liberian newspaper is broadcasting that the US is responsible for the ebola outbreak in the first place. And aid workers attempting to educate some end up with their throats cut and stuffed in a latrine.
Quite possibly they will be administered under force of gunpoint. That could end well (sarc ).
While the logistics of getting the natives vaccinated could be interesting the risks of the vaccine while probably higher than for most vaccines are still much lower than the risk of not being vaccinated. Ebola is like smallpox…..refusal to be vaccinated carries a HIGH risk of dying…..not just a tiny theoretical risk. Some vaccines like flu and HPV are not as imperative as the risks of being unvaccinated are not extreme. For Ebola the risk is huge so the benefit of vaccine action is very real.