There is good news on Ebola, but you have to go looking for it. There are very few active cases known to the World Health Organization (WHO) today, and a few hundred of their contacts are being monitored. One of the new vaccines seems to be working remarkably well.
The epidemic of Ebola panic in US media and among US politicians has subsided, but the actual disease outbreak that has killed more than 11,000 people in three African countries is only well-contained, not over. If all goes well, and the current handful of patients being kept in isolation do not infect anybody else, the chain of infection will be broken next month, and six weeks after that the current epidemic will be declared over. That is still a big if. For some time, new infections held steady at 20 or 30 a week, and it is possible that this is only another, though much lower, plateau.
Come on in. We have links and data.
BBC News: Sierra Leone records zero new Ebola infections
Zero in the last week, that is, down from 500 new cases a week in Sierra Leone at the peak. There are still two active cases in Sierra Leone, according to WHO. Guinea reported three new cases last week, while Liberia has had none since July 23, and quarantines have ended for all Ebola contacts there. No more villages are under quarantine in Sierra Leone, and night life in the cities is resuming.
CNN, Aug. 3: WHO: Trials show new Ebola vaccine is 'highly effective'
Trials of the single-dose VSV-EBOV vaccine began in March in Guinea -- one of three West African nations at the center of the recent outbreak -- and have shown such promise that this week it was decided to extend immediate vaccination to "all people at risk" after close contact with an infected person, a WHO statement said.
More than 4,000 contacts of Ebola patients, including relatives, co-workers, health workers, laboratory staff, cleaning staff, and burial teams, were vaccinated, in the first round, and more than 3,500 later on, and none has come down with the disease. This follows the method used for the successful eradication of smallpox in the wild in the 1970s, of vaccinating in ever-wider circles around each new patient as the number of cases declined. This is called "ring vaccination". Production of the new Ebola vaccine is still quite limited, and takes several weeks for each batch.
Until this week, half were vaccinated three weeks after the identification of an infected patient and others straight away, to allow for comparison of the results. The randomization was stopped on Sunday "to allow for all people at risk to receive the vaccine immediately, and to minimize the time necessary to gather more conclusive evidence needed for eventual licensure of the product," the WHO said.
The Lancet, the UK's top medical journal, has an excellent
Ebola Resource Centre on its Web site. Here is the PDF of their research paper on the Ebola vaccine trial.
Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine expressing Ebola surface glycoprotein: interim results from the Guinea ring vaccination cluster-randomised trial
Findings Between April 1, 2015, and July 20, 2015, 90 clusters, with a total population of 7651 people were included in the planned interim analysis. 48 of these clusters (4123 people) were randomly assigned to immediate vaccination with rVSV-ZEBOV, and 42 clusters (3528 people) were randomly assigned to delayed vaccination with rVSV-ZEBOV. In the immediate vaccination group, there were no cases of Ebola virus disease with symptom onset at least 10 days after randomisation, whereas in the delayed vaccination group there were 16 cases of Ebola virus disease from seven clusters, showing a vaccine efficacy of 100% (95% CI 74·7–100·0; p=0·0036). No new cases of Ebola virus disease were diagnosed in vaccinees from the immediate or delayed groups from 6 days post-vaccination. At the cluster level, with the inclusion of all eligible adults, vaccine effectiveness was 75·1% (95% CI –7·1 to 94·2; p=0·1791), and 76·3% (95% CI –15·5 to 95·1; p=0·3351) with the inclusion of everyone (eligible or not eligible for vaccination). 43 serious adverse events were reported; one serious adverse event was judged to be causally related to vaccination (a febrile episode in a vaccinated participant, which resolved without sequelae). Assessment of serious adverse events is ongoing.
Interpretation The results of this interim analysis indicate that rVSV-ZEBOV might be highly efficacious and safe in preventing Ebola virus disease, and is most likely effective at the population level when delivered during an Ebola virus disease outbreak via a ring vaccination strategy.