:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/I6X7TA7DUVF7RPHSKHP2DV6OHE.jpg "Marburg virus outbreak fuels race to develop disease vaccines")
The disease for marburg virus caught the world’s attention this week. Since the first outbreak of this infection was confirmed in Equatorial Guinea, Africa, where at least 9 people died. It is a highly contagious and deadly disease, similar to Ebola.
What do we know about the Marburg virus as a new epidemic emerges
The WHO has confirmed at least 9 deaths in Equatorial Guinea and 16 suspected cases. It is a highly contagious pathogen with a mortality rate of up to 88%
There is not yet a specific vaccine or proven treatment for Marburg virus disease. A few days ago the results of a study with a vaccine being developed to prevent this infection in the United States were published. The work was published in the prestigious magazine The Lancet.
The search for an effective and safe vaccine was precisely the reason for a meeting convened urgently, this Tuesday, by the World Health Organization (WHO) after the detection of the epidemic in Equatorial Guinea.
The meeting was held with the MARVAC consortium, which was formed to promote international collaboration in the development of vaccines against Marburg virus disease. It includes stakeholders from industry, non-profit organizations, government and academia seeking to research and develop vaccines against the infection.
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Regarding the vaccine being developed in the United States, A phase I clinical study has shown it to be safe and induces an immune response in a small clinical trial conducted for the first time in humans.
The vaccine is being developed by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Researchers believe it could one day be an important tool in responding to Marburg virus outbreaks.
The researchers callcAd3-Marburgto the vaccine. This development uses a modified chimpanzee adenovirus called “cAd3”, which can no longer replicate or infect cells, displaying a glycoprotein found on the surface of the virus to induce immune responses against the virus.
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The cAd3 vaccine platform has demonstrated a good safety profile in previous clinical trials, when used in experimental vaccines against Ebola virus and Sudan virus developed by the same American institute.
The Marburg virus is a filovirus from the same family as the Ebola virus. It causes a rapidly progressive febrile illness leading to shock and death in a large proportion of those infected.
Many scientists believe that human outbreaks of Marburg virus disease begin when the virus jumps from its animal host primaries, which are probably species of bats chronically infected from sub-Saharan Africa.
Symptoms are similar to those of Ebola virus disease and may include fever, headache, chills, rash, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. As the disease progresses, patients may experience multiple organ dysfunction, delirium, and significant bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract or other sites that can lead to death.
The vaccine study involved 40 healthy adult volunteers, who were enrolled at the Walter Reed Army Research Institute Clinical Trials Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. They received a single dose of a low dose of vaccine (1×1010 particle units) or a higher dose (1×1011 particle units).
For safety reasons, the volunteers were enrolled in a dose escalation plan. Three participants received the lowest dose. Then, when they showed no serious adverse reactions after the first seven days, the remaining 17 volunteers were recruited.
The same procedure was used for the group receiving the highest dose. The volunteers were monitored for adverse effects from the experimental vaccine and were assessed at regular intervals for 48 weeks to monitor their immune responses.
“The safety results of the trial were encouraging: no serious adverse effects occurred and the experimental vaccine was well tolerated,” the researchers said in a statement.
One participant in the highest dose group developed a fever after vaccination, but it went away the next day. Besides, the experimental vaccine seem to induce a strong and lasting immunity against glycoprotein Marburg virus: 95% of attendees in the test showed a robust antibody response after vaccination, and 70% maintained this response for more than 48 weeks.
Further trials of the vaccine are planned in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and the United States. If additional data confirms the promising results of the phase 1 trial, the cAd3 Marburg virus vaccine could one day be used in emergency responses to Marburg virus outbreaks.
The virus was first described in 1967, when two epidemics occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, and in what is now Serbia. These outbreaks caused 31 cases and seven deaths. There have been 16 outbreaks with a cumulative total of less than 500 reported cases, an editorial reported in The Lancet.
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