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Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director
Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a lack of funding has held back the agency's response to the Ebola crisis. | JEWEL SAMAD via Getty Images
BETHESDA, Md. -- As the federal government frantically works to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and as it responds to a second diagnosis of the disease at home, one of the country's top health officials says a vaccine likely would have already been discovered were it not for budget cuts.
So far, much of the focus has been on an experimental cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies known as ZMapp. But the current stockpile is not nearly great enough. Collins, a touch exasperated, said it would be all but impossible to have significant doses available by the end of the calendar year -- with a lack of funding once again playing a disruptive role.
There are other potential therapies. Brincidofovir has been used on an Ebola patient brought to Nebraska and on the late Thomas Eric Duncan, who was diagnosed with the disease after traveling to Dallas from his native Liberia. Unlike ZMapp, there is a large stockpile of Brincidofovir available, and the doses required are small. "So you could imagine you have enough drug now to treat 16,000 people," said Collins. But, again, a clinical trial is needed in Liberia.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/12/ebola-vaccine_n_5974148.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director
Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a lack of funding has held back the agency's response to the Ebola crisis. | JEWEL SAMAD via Getty Images
BETHESDA, Md. -- As the federal government frantically works to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and as it responds to a second diagnosis of the disease at home, one of the country's top health officials says a vaccine likely would have already been discovered were it not for budget cuts.
So far, much of the focus has been on an experimental cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies known as ZMapp. But the current stockpile is not nearly great enough. Collins, a touch exasperated, said it would be all but impossible to have significant doses available by the end of the calendar year -- with a lack of funding once again playing a disruptive role.
There are other potential therapies. Brincidofovir has been used on an Ebola patient brought to Nebraska and on the late Thomas Eric Duncan, who was diagnosed with the disease after traveling to Dallas from his native Liberia. Unlike ZMapp, there is a large stockpile of Brincidofovir available, and the doses required are small. "So you could imagine you have enough drug now to treat 16,000 people," said Collins. But, again, a clinical trial is needed in Liberia.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/12/ebola-vaccine_n_5974148.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592