Experimental Russian Ebola Vaccine Shows Positive Preclinical Results

18:11 26/08/2014

© RIA Novosti. Vladimir Fedorenko

SIMFEROPOL, August 26 (RIA Novosti) – An experimental Russian Ebola vaccine showed positive initial results in preclinical trials, Russian Healthcare Minister Veronika Skvortsova told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

Russian Healthcare Minister Veronika Skvortsova said that an experimental Russian Ebola vaccine showed positive initial results in preclinical trials

“Our advance team, employees of the Russian Health Ministry’s Ivanovsky Institute and an employee of one of the Rospotrebnadzor centers, returned from Guinea. We know the pathogen and its characteristics, and currently we have an experimental vaccine that has undergone preclinical trials with good results,” the Health Minister said.

According to Skvortsova, the vaccine is currently undergoing further testing.

The Russian Health Ministry’s Ivanovsky Research Institute of Virology is among the world’s leading research centers studying the ecology, epidemiology and molecular biology of human and animal viruses.

According to the latest data released by the World Health Organization, the current outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in West Africa has afflicted 2,615 people, killing 1,427. The disease has spread through Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, and was recently registered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has already claimed 13 lives.