After Ebola, a Blueprint Emerges to Jump-Start R&D

What’s newsworthy, however, is the current pace of Ebola research and development. In the last two months, an Ebola candidate vaccine has entered final stage testing in humans in Guinea and Sierra Leone. While it typically takes between five to ten years to develop and fully test a vaccine, because of the urgency provided by the Ebola epidemic, the pace of science was drastically accelerated.

On the other side of the laboratory, new diagnostics now allow for a much quicker diagnosis of the virus. Three new drugs are being tested to assess whether they are able to cure Ebola patients from the disease. ***

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has been called a wake-up call for so many reasons. With Ebola, once the world understood the threat, the actions taken not only halted the disease, but also left us better prepared to fend off the next outbreak.

From where I sit in Geneva, the response by the global health and R&D communities awakens hope. There are many diseases with the potential to trigger chaos and human suffering, but we have learned how to jumpstart research and development to address epidemics as they occur and stem the tide of suffering from these diseases. We have also learned that we must take some critical research steps proactively before another wake-up call.

We are now in a position to design a framework for how to prepare for and respond in the most challenging public health crises. That framework needs fine tuning, and the support of the international community so that next time we are prepared to move forward more quickly, and halt the epidemic before it becomes the next dire crisis.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...ump-start-r-d/