Spanish researchers are working on a universal vaccine

Spanish researchers began work on the development of a vaccine that they hope will be effective against all strains of the Ebola virus, announced their director today in Madrid.

These researchers of the Madrilenian public hospital of October 12th have been working for months, in collaboration with two other establishments in the Spanish capital, on blood samples from three patients suffering from the virus and treated in Spain. According to Rafael Delgado, director of this team of researchers, the three patients developed antibodies "very effective" against the disease but in "small quantity" and only effective against the strain Zaire.

The "challenge" of these researchers is now to "produce these antibodies on a large scale, through a vaccine" that can be effective against all strains of the virus, said Rafael Delgado, head of the microbiology department of this hospital. According to Rafael Delgado, the difficulty lies in the fact that the Ebola virus protects itself with carapaceous proteins and exposes its vulnerable areas for a short time, which complicates the action of the immune system.

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The microbiologist has indicated that he hopes to see results from tests in mice by one year from now. An experimental vaccine, with the technical name rVSVSV-ZEBOV, has already been developed as a result of the worst Ebola epidemic, the most violent in history, that hit West Africa between late 2013 and 2016, causing more than 11,300 deaths.

Administered in May in the DRC, this vaccine, developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada – licensed by NewLink Genetics who in turn licensed it to Merck & Co group – was considered "very effective" by the World Health Organization (WHO) but it is only against the strain Zaire. The US Johnson & Johnson laboratory is developing an experimental vaccine against two strains

In 2014, Spain recorded the first contaminated person outside Africa. Teresa Romero, a caregiver, contracted hemorrhagic fever in Spain, caring in a Madrilenian hospital for a missionary who had repatriated from Sierra Leone and died of the disease.