Russia has registered the world's best vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus, President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday.
“We have good news,” said Putin at a government meeting, according the TASS news agency. “We have registered a vaccine for Ebola that following testing has shown a high efficacy, higher than that of vaccines currently used.”
Ebola has claimed more than 10,000 lives in West Africa over the past two years, and at its height caused fears of global pandemic. The infectious virus kills around half its victims, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhea.
The outbreak in Africa has been contained, mostly through isolation and quarantine measures, as well as use of trial vaccines manufactured by Western pharmaceutical companies and pioneered last year.
One vaccine was shown to be 100 percent effective in trials involving 4,000 people in Guinea last year, The Guardian newspaper reported.
