How trials will work for Ebola vaccines

The search for an Ebola cure is gearing up — but there may be too few patients.  (Scroll down for Graphics.)

WASHINGTON POST     by  Amy Brittain                                                                      Feb. 10, 2015                        

But they are encountering an unexpected challenge: finding enough Ebola patients as the outbreak recedes.

In Liberia, researchers had to scrap a clinical drug trial at the end of January because of a lack of Ebola patients. Another trial there, using donations of blood plasma, has struggled to enroll enough participants. Its organizers may be forced to move it to Sierra Leone.

Guinea offers a glimpse of the promise and difficulties of the new experiments. This month, officials said a small trial of a Japanese antiviral drug in Guinea’s forest region had yielded encouraging early results. The government announced Saturday that the drug may be distributed in additional areas.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/the-search-for-an-ebola-cure-is-gearing-up--but-there-may-be-too-few-patients/2015/02/09/7bf6c41c-a80a-11e4-a162-121d06ca77f1_story.html

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Graphics on the Ebola vaccine clinical trials in West Africa

WASHINGTON POST   by Bonnie Berkowitz and Patterson Clark,                                   Feb. 8, 2015

Two promising Ebola vaccines have begun clinical trials in West Africa. A different type of trial is planned for each of the three countries hit hardest by the epidemic. This phase could take a year or more, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. A trial’s length depends on the spread of the epidemic, and this one is subsiding.

See the graphics.

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/how-trials-will-work-for-ebola-vaccines/1594/