Ebola Vaccination: If Not Now, When?

Ebola virus disease causes severe hemorrhagic fever, witha case-fatality rate of 50 % to 90 % (1). The ongoing epidemic in West Africa is the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded and is rapidly crossing borders. The relentless ep-idemiologic trajectory and geographic dissemination repre-sent a public health crisis that shows no signs of diminish-ing under current efforts. We believe that the time to deploy Ebola vaccines is now, as advocated in recent state-ments by the World Health Organization. Ebola arises sporadically via zoonosis from fruit bats (the natural reservoir) to humans, often through great apes. Human-to-human transmission occurs primarily through contact with infected body fluids. This transmission route puts health care workers, family members, and persons pre-paring bodies for traditional funerals at high risk for the disease (1). Although no Ebola vaccines are currently li