The Most Promising Ebola Vaccine Has Been Sitting on the Shelf for 15 Years
Fever was the first symptom to grip the crab-eating macaques in their high-containment laboratory on an island off Texas after being infected with the newly discovered Bundibugyo strain of ebola. Then came the weight loss, the rectal bleeding and nosebleeds, while scientists in space suits drew blood to see how the monkeys’ immune systems struggled to fight the aggressive virus.
But the three monkeys that had received a newly developed vaccine to protect against the understudied strain showed no symptoms of the disease, which eventually killed two-thirds of their unvaccinated companions.
It was 2011, and virologist Thomas Geisbert’s work developing the vaccine was done. If the vaccine had protected primates from the Bundibugyo strain of ebola, it was highly likely to protect humans. Yet with an outbreak now ragingin the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, Geisbert’s promising vaccine hasn’t been deployed at all—or even put through...
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