Russian official says Ebola vaccine to be developed shortly
Russian researches and their
counterparts abroad hope to finalize work on a vaccine for the so far
incurable Ebola virus shortly, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said
Thursday, reports Itar-Tass.
She said a team of representatives of Russia’s sanitary and consumer
rights supervision agency, Rospotrebnadzor, and the nation’s best
virologists were leaving for Guinea Thursday “to join scientists from
other countries who are developing a new preparation, which will help
curb the new disease that has, unfortunately, been identified.”
She said that Rospotrebnadzor is opening a mobile epidemiological laboratory in Guinea.
Golodets recalled that Russian virologists, including experts from the St Petersburg-based Pasteur Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, visited Guinea in mid-August. They did there a preliminary assessment of the situation with the Ebola epidemic outbreak that has carried away more than 1,000 human lives and has left 1,848 people infected.
“We’re sending the top-rate professionals there,” she said. “All of them work with the most dangerous viruses. This is their profession and they realize the degree of their responsibility only too well and they’ll surely take all the precautions.”
As Golodets mentioned a possibility of the epidemic getting into Russia, she said this was scarcely in the cards - the epidemiological situation was stable and the authorities had taken all the preventive measures that were mandatory in this situation.
She said, among other things, control had been tightened over the passengers arriving from Africa.
The cancellations of flights to the destinations stricken by the Ebola epidemic was off the agenda for the time being and the “troubleshooting” was still restricted to tighter control and supervision, as well as to assistance to the people manifesting possible symptoms of the disease, like high temperature.
Golodets said proper instructions had been issued to the personnel of airlines and particularly to cabin crews, who had been told to take steps proceeding from each specific case if passengers with Ebola virus symptoms were identified.
She said that Rospotrebnadzor is opening a mobile epidemiological laboratory in Guinea.
Golodets recalled that Russian virologists, including experts from the St Petersburg-based Pasteur Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, visited Guinea in mid-August. They did there a preliminary assessment of the situation with the Ebola epidemic outbreak that has carried away more than 1,000 human lives and has left 1,848 people infected.
“We’re sending the top-rate professionals there,” she said. “All of them work with the most dangerous viruses. This is their profession and they realize the degree of their responsibility only too well and they’ll surely take all the precautions.”
As Golodets mentioned a possibility of the epidemic getting into Russia, she said this was scarcely in the cards - the epidemiological situation was stable and the authorities had taken all the preventive measures that were mandatory in this situation.
She said, among other things, control had been tightened over the passengers arriving from Africa.
The cancellations of flights to the destinations stricken by the Ebola epidemic was off the agenda for the time being and the “troubleshooting” was still restricted to tighter control and supervision, as well as to assistance to the people manifesting possible symptoms of the disease, like high temperature.
Golodets said proper instructions had been issued to the personnel of airlines and particularly to cabin crews, who had been told to take steps proceeding from each specific case if passengers with Ebola virus symptoms were identified.
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