To quickly recap, Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever is currently causing devastation in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. With a death toll of over a thousand and climbing, and treatment of U.S. doctors and missionaries (CNN), everyone is calling for a vaccination.
And a quick recap of how vaccinations work. The body protects itself from disease via the production of antibodies by the immune system that target foreign"antigens" (germs). The body remembers these antigens and gives a much faster response if there is a repeat infection. The immune system, however, can sometimes be too slow to respond to prevent sickness. That's where vaccines come in. Vaccinations are effective because they contain antigens that have been that have been killed or weakened to the point where they don't cause disease, but still allow antibodies to develop against them. This way if infection does occur, the body already has memory of it and can respond much faster so sickness doesn't occur.
There is a promising filovirus vaccine under development for Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever based on recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus. This type of vaccine has shown to be 100% effective against Marburg virus and 3 species of the Ebola virus in nonhuman primates. There are caveats, though; protection is only good for 28-35 days after a single injection, and this hasn't undergone human trials.
Correction from reliable sources is always appreciated.
