Ebola virus outbreak in Africa

[Ian A. York]

In article <3p2a1f$8uu at eplet.mira.net.au> proff at suburbia.apana.org.au (Julian Assange) writes:

>I presume the answer to this is no, or it would have occured already, but
>why can't the Reston strain be used to innoculate people against Ebola
>Zaire? 

It may well be possible.  Are you volunteering for the experiment?  Bear
in mind that (1) only 4 people are believed to have been infected with
Reston, so we have no idea what the odds of disease are with Reston. 
Perhaps 1/10 of the people to be given it will die, and 9/10 will have no
or mild disease.  That's not a satisfactory vaccine.  (2) We have no idea
if the antibody response to Reston is protective, either against Reston or
Zaire.  There is a hint that the response to Zaire is protective, because
convalescent antisera have apparently helped people infected with the same
virus.  However, in (for example) Dengue, pre-exposure to one strain may
actually make an infection with a second strain worse.  (3) Most
important, there is no animal model available.  Reston kills monkeys, so
it's obviously useless to test this idea with monkeys - the situation is
completely different.  What's needed is a species which reacts similarly
to both Reston and Zaire as do humans.  

The bottom line is that there is not enough information, and until the 
first two questions are answered using Reston as a vaccine would be an 
act of desperation.

Ian


-- 
Ian York   (york at mbcrr.harvard.edu)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney St., Boston MA 02115
Phone (617)-632-3921     Fax  (617)-632-2627