Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Experimental Vaccine Used on Human

An experimentla vaccine for Ebola virus was used on a doctor who pricked her finger with a needle that they were using to inject Ebola into lab rats. Her potential exposure and the incredibly deadly nature of this disease led to drastic action being taken. As this video will explain further, the scientist was given a vaccine never before used on humans. She was isolated from the start, and it was never known if she was actually infected. According to Wikipedia, she passed the 21 day incubation period with no outbreak or signs of the virus, so she has been declared healthy and safe. They are unable to determine if the vaccine saved her (it was her final decision on whether or not to accept the treatment) or if she was simply never infected, but at least this demonstrated that the vaccine seems to have no short term effects on humans (of course, this is with a sample size of one). Very interesting, and it also details just how seriously Ebola exposure is taken, as she was quarantined from the beginning of the entire ordeal and the scientist remains unnamed according to the video

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