Ebola Virus Disease News and Research

Latest Ebola Virus Disease News and Research

First Ebola vaccine prequalified by WHO for use in high-risk countries

The world's first Ebola vaccine has been prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO).

14 Nov 2019

New approach may help kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Current treatment regimens for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis, are long, complex, and hard for people to sustain. Moreover, the bacteria often develop drug resistance, and many people harbor multi-drug-resistant strains. In 2018 alone, nearly 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis worldwide.

12 Nov 2019

Investigational vaccine protects macaques against four types of hemorrhagic fever viruses

Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed an investigational vaccine that protected cynomolgus macaques against four types of hemorrhagic fever viruses endemic to overlapping regions in Africa.

8 Nov 2019

Risk assessment model for Ebola transmission accurately predicted Uganda cases

A new risk assessment model for the transmission of Ebola accurately predicted its spread into the Republic of Uganda, according to the Kansas State University researchers who developed it.

5 Nov 2019

Tightening of Ebola care practice rules following survivor’s death

Guidelines for the safe care of Ebola patients are being looked over after a patient's death due to a second infection from Ebola.

1 Nov 2019

Ebola virus vaccine still effective against the infection even in low concentrations

The Ebola virus (EBOV), variant Makona, was the causative agent of the 2014-2016 West African epidemic that took over 11,000 lives and infected nearly 30,000 people. But with the combination of globally-supported containment efforts, health experts were able to track the spread of the outbreak, as well as use precautionary and quarantine procedures.

21 Oct 2019

Highly diluted candidate Ebola vaccine remains fully protective against disease in macaques

A single dose of a highly diluted VSV-Ebola virus vaccine--approximately one-millionth of what is in the vaccine being used to help control the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)--remains fully protective against disease in experimentally infected monkeys, according to National Institutes of Health scientists.

18 Oct 2019

Computer model predicts location of future Ebola virus outbreaks

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a deadly infection that is highly contagious. It has taken thousands of lives across history, with a number of outbreaks mostly happening in West Africa. In the worse outbreak, between 2014 and 2016, there had been 28,616 cases of EVD, 11,310 of whom had died in the continent. Overseas, there had been 36 cases and 15 deaths.

16 Oct 2019

Scientists show how the immune system reacts to Ebola vaccine

Following the dramatic Ebola epidemic in West Africa from 2013 to 2016, viral infections have spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2018. Since then, more than 2,100 deaths have been reported and the number of victims and new infections increases daily.

10 Oct 2019

Scientists uncover details of antibody response to Ebola virus vaccine

In the recurring, deadly Ebola outbreaks in parts of Africa, today's health workers now have at least some tools to fight the disease: vaccines. Vaccines against Ebola have been administered to over 100,000 people to date, but they are barely out of the experimental stage.

10 Oct 2019

Texas Biomed scientists continue testing therapies and vaccines for Ebola virus

In mid-August 2019, human clinical trials were halted in the current Ebola epidemic that has claimed more than 2,100 lives in Africa.

26 Sep 2019

Second round of Ebola vaccination trials on the way to DRC

A second experimental Ebola vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson will soon undergo clinical trials in the Ebola affected Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) announced health officials. The second round of vaccinations is to begin middle of October this year.

24 Sep 2019

Tanzania keeping Ebola under wraps

Ebola could be already on the prowl in Tanzania, but the government is keeping it a secret. This is the official position of the World Health Organization (WHO), who says multiple cases have been secretly reported to it.

23 Sep 2019

2019 ASTMH Annual Meeting to focus on Ebola, monkey malaria, and other infectious diseases

This year's meeting will kick off with keynotes from two public health heroes who have pioneered a home-based approach to fighting infant mortality in India that's now being adopted in 10 countries.

23 Sep 2019

UMSOM receives landmark contract from NIAID for influenza research

Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, announced that CVD has been awarded a contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with total funding up to more than $200 million over seven years if all contract options are exercised.

20 Sep 2019

Mutant live attenuated Ebola virus elicits protective immunity in monkeys

Inoculation with an Ebola virus that has mutations in a protein called VP35 does not cause disease and elicits protection in monkeys, researchers show September 17 in the journal Cell Reports.

17 Sep 2019

Scientists join hands to protect Australia from growing threat of infectious diseases

A new project in Northern Australia will focus on how Australia can better protect and rapidly respond to the growing global risk of emergent infectious diseases which can spread to humans through animals and insects.

30 Aug 2019

Community-based wildlife mortality surveillance program could help prevent Ebola outbreaks

Human Ebola epidemics, like the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are known to start from a contact with wildlife infected with Ebola virus. In

29 Aug 2019

Harnessing power of CRISPR to control behavior of DNA-responsive materials

The CRISPR-Cas system has become the go-to tool for researchers who study genes in an ever-growing list of organisms, and is being used to develop new gene therapies that potentially can correct a defect at a single nucleotide position of the vast reaches of the genome.

23 Aug 2019

Scientists step closer to an Ebola cure

The Ebola virus has killed thousands of people in Western Africa between 2014 and 2016. Recently, another outbreak in Congo emerged, killing roughly a thousand people. Now, scientists are a step closer to an Ebola cure, thanks to two new drugs that appear to be highly effective in treating people with the virus.

13 Aug 2019