Thursday, December 19, 2019

Merck's Ebola Vaccine -- Ervebo® -- Clears FDA: Excellent News...


Last month, Kenilworth learned that the European Medicines Agency had approved Ervebo throughout the EU.

Tonight, the company learned that here in the US, the FDA has followed suit. Here's a bit, from Ed Silverman' crew, at STAT:

. . . .The road to approval has been long for this vaccine, which will likely be stockpiled by some countries — the United States among them — as a hedge against a possible bioterrorism attack.

The vaccine is also likely to make up a substantial portion of an emergency stockpile for outbreaks being put together by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for use in outbreaks. Gavi recently announced plans to establish a 500,000-dose stockpile. The Merck vaccine, given in a single dose, generates a quick immune response, with protection occurring within about 10 days. Those two features make it attractive as a tool for battling an outbreak.

Work on the vaccine stretches back to the 1990s, when a Yale University researcher, John “Jack” Rose, turned a virus that infects livestock — vesicular stomatitis virus — into a vector that could be used for vaccines. His work was expanded upon by scientists at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in the early and mid-2000s. . . .


This is indeed excellent news -- for humanity. Be excellent to one another. . . for we are all we have, one another. . . .

नमस्ते

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