Lack of World Interest in Ebola Delayed Vaccine
Lack of World Interest in Ebola Delayed Vaccine
October 27, 2014
The Jerusalem Post — A number of experimental vaccines to protect against the Ebola virus have been developed by the U.S. Army and other American agencies and are being produced by some pharmaceutical companies that were tested on primates. But, they did not reach the clinical testing stage because of the lack of priority in Western governments, according to virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel, of BGU’s Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics.
“Current experimental vaccines will likely enter the market at a time that the current epidemic is in the process of burning out,” Dr. Lobel predicted.
Dr. Leslie Lobel
“They are likely to work in humans, but they were not tested so far, and their efficacy is not ensured,” says Dr. Lobel.
“But vaccines are not the solution in the long term as they cannot be used for treatment, and large populations cannot be vaccinated in poor African countries where the disease is endemic.”
“Current experimental vaccines will likely enter the market at a time that the current epidemic is in the process of burning out,” Dr. Lobel predicts.
Dr. Lobel added that this is “an example of the failure of the system. We cannot blame drug companies, as it is the role of governments to ensure protection of the population against rare and deadly disease that the economics of the marketplace cannot sustain.”
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