First the bad:
There is an 18 percent chance that a case of the Ebola virus will reach
the United States by the end of September, according to a study
published on Tuesday in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks.
Despite restrictions reducing travel in and out of the infected
countries by 80 percent, the study, which analyzes global flight
patterns, suggests that a case of Ebola in the U.S. is becoming
increasingly harder to avoid. It also lists the chance of the
virus reaching the United Kingdom between 25 and 28 percent.
However, this potentially
good news:
Dr. Kieny
said nearly 200 scientists, ethicists and clinicians from around the
world had reached a consensus in identifying the most promising vaccines
and potential treatments and developing strategies for testing them.
The two vaccines, which have not yet been studied in humans, are set to
undergo initial tests of their safety and immune system effects
beginning this month in a small number of volunteers in Britain, the
United States and Mali, which borders Guinea, where the outbreak
emerged.
If
the initial safety tests were encouraging, the vaccines, still under
evaluation, should immediately be offered in stages to health workers
and other “front line staff” in West Africa, according to a
prioritization plan set by a panel of ethicists convened earlier this
summer by the W.H.O., Dr. Kieny said.
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