NEW YORK TIMES  by Denise Grady                                                                March 6, 2015

The moment he felt a needle jab into his thumb in September on an Ebola ward in Sierra Leone, Dr. Lewis Rubinson knew he was at risk of contracting the deadly disease. What could he do but wait to see if he got sick, and hope that treatment would pull him through?

Dr. Rubinson, an intensive care specialist and associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, chose another option, described in an article and editorial published Thursday in JAMA. He was quickly given a shot of an experimental vaccine, a type that had been used in one other person. The hope was that if he had been exposed to Ebola, the vaccine would stimulate his immune system to fight off the virus.

As it turns out, it is not clear whether the vaccine could have protected him against Ebola, because blood tests indicate he was almost certainly never infected. It is clear, though, that the vaccine stirred his immune system: He had fever, chills, nausea, muscle pains and a headache. But symptoms ebbed after a few days, and when it was all over, blood tests suggested that he was probably immune to Ebola.

         Dr. Lewis Rubinson received a shot of an experimental Ebola vaccine in Sierra Leone. Credit  Nate Pesce for The New York Times

 Read complete story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/health/doctors-mishap-sheds-light-on-ebola-vaccines-efficacy.html

Emergency Postexposure Vaccination With Vesicular Stomatitis Virus–Vectored Ebola Vaccine After Needlestick

Read JAMA study.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2195001