The Ebola vaccine test has taught public health officials important lessons that might be used to combat Zika. The researchers learned how to establish trust within a community that doesn’t have much scientific or government influence, which would be useful in remote regions in Latin America where Zika is rampant.
“Now, we want to make the point that we can almost certainly contain future Ebola outbreaks, and that we will probably have a new paradigm and tool for dealing with new outbreaks of whatever emerges in the future."
The Ebola vaccine has not yet been approved, and testing it is a challenge since the outbreak has mostly abated. And while the researchers still have a few questions about how it works in the long-term, they are confident that they’ve found a potent tool to combat the virus: If another outbreak were to happen, Longini said, “I would want that vaccine. But you can look at the results and decide for yourself.”
With more cases of Zika virus diagnosed every day, hopefully a similar experimental strategy could help bring an effective vaccine to those who need it most.