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Apr 3, 2009 07:50 PM | 5
A German researcher who accidentally exposed herself to the dreaded Ebola virus is apparently in the clear: the virus's three-week incubation period expired yesterday, her supervisor tells ScientificAmerican.com.
On March 12, a 45-year-old virologist (whose name was not released) at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany, accidentally jabbed herself with a syringe containing the virus that causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which kills up to 90 percent of its victims. It's symptoms: fever, body aches, diarrhea, vomiting, red eyes, and internal and external bleeding.
The slip occurred while the researcher, who had been studying new tests for Ebola infection, was injecting mice with the virus, according Stephan Günther, head of the institute's virology department. After reporting the incident to the institute, the woman rushed to the hospital, where she was placed in an isolated room and visited by doctors and nurses wearing protective gowns, gloves and masks.
That evening, Günther and his colleagues got on the phone with scientists from the U.S. and Canada, and together they decided to offer the woman an experimental Ebola vaccine that had never been tried in humans but which had shown promising results in monkeys -- even after they had been infected, Günther explains. Within 48 hours of the initial needle prick, researchers at Winnipeg's National Microbiology Lab in Canada had shipped the vaccine to Germany and it had been given to the woman.
About 14 hours later, she came down with a fever.
"At that moment, when she developed the fever, it wasn't clear if it was due to the Ebola virus," or to the vaccine, Günther says. But now that the virus' three-week incubation period has passed and no other Ebola symptoms have surfaced, Günther believes the vaccine—not the Ebola virus—was responsible.
"We are very confident the game is over," he says, noting that the woman was released from the hospital yesterday and is physically and psychologically stable. But how the woman evaded the disease remains a mystery – either she never became infected in the first place or the vaccine worked, Günther says. The good news, he says, "[is that] there were no serious side effects associated with the vaccine."
This is not the first time researchers have accidentally pricked themselves with needles containing the deadly Ebola virus. In 2004 a scientist from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Md., poked himself when a kicking mouse caused his hand to slip. Fortunately, he never developed the disease.
Image of Ebola virions: Public Library of Science via Wikimedia Commons
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5 Comments
Add CommentWhy don't they give it to all victims?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbecause everyone and their brother is afraid of being sued. And it has never been done in a blind test, or taken twenty years to prove there are no side effects. besides death that is (sic)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is disturbing that researchers who can't seem to observe precautions to avoid needle sticks have access to such a lethal virus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe vaccine hasn't been given to all researchers because it's brand spankin' new. You can bet that the next time this happens the vaccine will be made available; that's why it was developed in the first place. As far as avoiding needle sticks, it's the same as for a lot of things. Yes, there are precautions and precautions and precautions. Yet even the best will have a needle stick sometime - researchers just hope it's when they are working with something benign. That is why those of us working in the field have many levels of response, both to protect ourselves and especially to protect others, whether we are working with infectious diseases, hazardous chemicals, radioactivity, or all of the above at the same time. Even in the most advanced facility, the best protection is well-trained people. When the worst does happen, it's really nice to have a vaccine as a backup plan. Kudos to the people in Winnipeg who developed the Ebola vaccine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhether that researcher survived because of the vaccine, or she had some kind of immunity, or she was never actually infected, let us hope that the vaccine represents hope against one of the most horrific viruses that humankind has ever known. A "frightening brush" with Ebola can't begin to describe what this researcher must have felt since she was uniquely qualified to know what to expect if she succumbed to it - one of the most unimaginably horrific deaths known to man, . . . or woman. From the descriptions I have read, a bullet in the head would be much preferred than to let the disease run it's cruel course.
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