Recently, it has been announced that there is a new Ebola vaccine that is ready to hit the market. The vaccine has been granted a conditional marketing authorization tag. Merck is a pharmaceutical giant that has developed the vaccine. The vaccine has been dubbed Ervebo and it’s the first human Ebola vaccine to be given the green card by the EU. The vaccine was made by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the US Army 10 Years back. It is 2014 that Merck brought the rights to manufacture the vaccine after observing the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Ebola is an unmet medical need and hence, the new vaccine has been approved as the conditional marketing authorization type. The medicine is expected to advance with the incomplete data as the benefits are found to outweigh the risks. The preliminary tests of the vaccine were carried out in Guinea and the results were found to be promising. The pharmaceutical giant had donated almost 250,000 doses to the World Health Organization (WHO). The company also has plans to manufacture the vaccine in Germany by the third quarter of 2020. Currently, it has been marked as a priority review by FDA. Just like 11,000 deaths caused by the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the recent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has shown a fatality rate of 67% and approximately 3,000 people being infected with the virus. In July, Ebola was declared as a public health emergency by WHO.
In a parallel context, the University of Washington researchers have developed a new computer model that can help predict the changes in the environment and in human societies’ effect on the spread of the deadly virus. The model has predicted that by 2070, the outbreaks are expected to reach almost 60% and it could continue owing to the warmer climate and low financial support. This new system could help vaccinate people on a timely basis to avoid any future outbreaks.