Ebola Strikes Mali Just as Vaccination Effort Gets Under Way
An imam crosses the border while ill with Ebola, potentially sparking an outbreak.
Karen Weintraub
for National Geographic
Published November 15, 2014
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Ironically, the cluster of new cases comes at the same time that an experimental Ebola vaccine is being tested on health care workers in Mali. Myron Levine, director of the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine, has spent the past four decades developing, improving, and piloting new vaccines. Now Levine is collaborating with health officials in Mali to test the new Ebola vaccine. He talked with National Geographic about the new outbreak and the progress of the vaccine trials.
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When you started the vaccine trial in Mali, you didn't know there would also be an Ebola outbreak there. How is the arrival of Ebola affecting your research and vice versa?
The person who drew the blood from the two-year-old [to confirm that she had Ebola], that doctor was the first vaccinee. A couple of weeks [after his vaccination,] this imported case came and we had to send someone up country to draw the blood. If you've got to send someone, why not send someone who, in addition to knowing how to use PPE, also is vaccinated?...
