VOA常速英语:或有新疫苗对抗埃博拉

In Congo, Ebola claims the lives of 60 percent of those who get the virus. The disease is so devastating, even those who survive it are shunned. Really makes it frightening is the high mortality rate, the very severe symptoms that people experience. And you know the fact that it comes up when not expected. The death rate is high even after a vaccine was used in West Africa during an Ebola outbreak that claimed 11,000 lives.

Dr. Paul Spearman is leading a US team of investigators to develop better and longer-lasting vaccines. Researchers are conducting a clinical trial that’s testing two experimental Ebola vaccines. We’re giving one vaccine and followed one week later by another vaccine, and that could give you very rapid protection. If the vaccine combination proves effective, it could be used in African countries where Ebola breaks out regularly. These epidemics that occur in several parts of Africa can arise without warning. The vaccines don’t contain the Ebola virus, but they produce a major Ebola virus protein. That’s designed to get the immune system to react. study participants are well aware of the health and humanitarian crisis Ebola causes. Anything that we can do with research through research to stop it or prevent it, or make it so that it’s not something that grows rapidly or spreads rapidly, and I think being a part of something like that. To see if these vaccines work, researchers test the volunteers blood samples which are collected before getting injected with the experimental vaccine and also afterwards. We have baseline after one week after two weeks and we can be compared the three and then see what difference vaccination makes. The researchers hope their work could provide clues for other Ebola vaccines as well as a better understanding of how to build immunity to other pathogens, which are viruses, bacteria or other bugs that can cause disease.
Carol Pearson, VOA News, Washington.