Clinical trials for Ebola vaccine begin

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(Updated)
Two people with Ebola-like symptoms are in isolation after showing up at two separate hospitals in Ottawa and Belleville. The Ottawa patient had recently visited a West African country Her results just released this evening, were negative. The Belleville patient had recently made one stop-over at a Sierra Leone airport. The hospital has described the case as extremely low risk.

The first human clinical trials of a Canadian developed Ebola vaccine began Monday. The vaccine has already been tested on primates. It both prevented the infection if given before exposure and increased survival chances if given after exposure.

Now, it’s being tested in the U.S. on healthy human volunteers. It contains parts of the virus and these trials will hopefully show whether it works on people and what dosage needs to be given.

Ebola screening stations have been set up at six airports to help prevent passengers with the virus from entering Canada. Health Minister Rona Ambrose was fielding questions about that Monday and says the likelihood is very low: “There’s only 30, approximately 30 people a week come in from those affected countries into Canada. So we’re not talking about a great deal of people. We’re also talking about a situation where Canadian Border Service agents are alerted or should be alerted about whether travelers are originating in any of the affected countries.”

Some airport screening measures have been criticized. Experts says they wouldn’t have helped in the case of Thomas Duncan who recently died of Ebola in Texas.