An aerosol-based vaccine that has been shown to protect primates against the Ebola virus may provide a basis for advancing clinical trials, according to research published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Here are three things to know about the study.
- Researchers from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the National Institutes of Health characterized the immune responses generated by vaccination against Ebola delivered to the respiratory tract when inhaled.
- They compared these response with an unrelated protective injectable Ebola vaccine and found that a single vaccination with the aerosol protect primates against the virus.
- "This study demonstrates successful aerosol vaccination against a viral hemorrhagic fever for the first time," Alex Bukreyev, a virologist, UTMB professor and a senior author of the paper, said in a statement. "A single-dose aerosol vaccine would enable both prevention and containment of Ebola infections, in a natural outbreak setting where healthcare infrastructure is lacking or during bioterrorism and biological warfare scenarios."