New Ebola vaccine protected monkeys for 10 months

One shot of an experimental Ebola vaccine when combined with an additional vaccine was found to be effective in protecting monkeys against the deadly virus for 10 months.

"Ten months after the initial inoculation, four out of four animals that received both shots were fully protected from the infection, demonstrating that the prime-boost regimen resulted in durable protection," said Nancy Sullivan, head of the study, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center in the US.

The new vaccine regimen offers new hope as the world health community battles an Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa that has killed over 2,000 people so far.

In the study, researchers found that the effects of a single shot of the experimental Ebola vaccine, chimp adenovirus type 3 or ChAd3, which is similar to the one currently being tested in early-stage human clinical trials in the US, protected two out of four inoculated animals afflicted with Ebola virus.

The research team, then, demonstrated increased levels of durable protection using an additional vaccine.

They inoculated four macaques first with the ChAd3 Ebola vaccine, then eight weeks later with a booster vaccine containing Ebola virus gene segments incorporated into a different vector (a pox virus).

The study appeared in the journal Nature Medicine.