A leading researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates that he is two years away from formal testing of his Ebola vaccine, and he is now hoping to get a drug company’s financial support for clinical trials.
Since December 2013, more than 10,000 people have died from the Ebola outbreak concentrated in West Africa.
Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the Department of Pathobiological Sciences, said that he has developed a vaccine to stem the potentially deadly ailment.
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“(An) Ebola outbreak occurs almost every year, so this is not the last Ebola outbreak. That’s why it’s important to have a vaccine developed,” Kawaoka said.
He said the vaccine is safe because it uses a strain of Ebola that’s missing a key protein. It will only grow in specialized cells that contain that protein.
“So, our vaccine works. But our vaccine, our virus does not grow in normal cells so it’s unlikely to be used as is,” Kawaoka said.
There are currently four Ebola vaccines in clinical trials.
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