非洲正在发生的可怕危机，现在感染了埃博拉病毒威胁要成为地方性，其根源在许多原因中，其中当前对病毒的理解状态及其控制手段必须最少。

It’s not that we don’t know what to do

埃博拉病毒爆发can be brought under control within weeks通过已建立的遏制措施。但是在这种情况下，该病毒被认为是爆发原因的三个月，而另外五个则是宣布公共卫生紧急情况的爆发，此后几周后，人道主义反应。

Meanwhile densely populated towns, and not just rural areas, are affected; the populations of the affected areas are very mobile; traditional burial practices involve washing the bodies of the dead; and resources for identifying, isolating and treating the infected are very limited. So the outbreak has accelerated, with the number of deaths already exceeding deaths in all earlier outbreaks combined,感染每两到三周增加一倍，看不见。

Accounts from the field，梅德金斯（Médecins）Sansantières一直在对该病毒进行前线动作，因为它在成为头条新闻之前就可以让您屏住呼吸。

领域的命令

至少在不久的将来，遏制看起来像是失去的原因，因此加速释放无牌治疗和埃博拉病毒疫苗的案例是紧急考虑的重点。本月BMC生物学，亨氏·费尔德曼（Heinz Feldmann）的研究，美国国家卫生研究院（NIH）在病毒学实验室方面的研究是关于高端病毒的，并且在爆发管理方面具有现场经验，而托马斯·霍恩（Thomas Hoenen）则在NIH的病毒学实验室中也有托马斯·霍恩（Thomas Hoenen）排练论点在我们必须交出的方面，对病毒的了解以及该领域的政治现实。

None of the existing therapeutic agents or vaccines is licensed. The case for overlooking this for health workers, with priority access to limited supplies, is, as Feldmann and Hoenen point out, more or less incontestable, given the critical importance of trained health workers to all populations affected and the (at least) 144 already lost to the virus.

鉴于安全或功效失败的固有危险将因疏远已经恐惧和不信任的人群而变得更加复杂，因此更广泛的传播案例更加复杂。

同时，费尔德曼（Feldmann）和霍宁（Hoenen）并不孤单地指出，含有爆发的传统措施是必须的，以及简单的措施（流体和电解质替代）保持感染患者的活力足够长的时间给他们一个机会来抵抗the virus for themselves.

此外，对于实验措施，更广泛的传播问题是在学术上。没有实验性治疗剂和疫苗。

不是生物学

Everybody knows that after sanitation, the most effective disease control measure is vaccination.

这是关于疫苗的非常简单的事实。它们取决于引起自然免疫反应。如果患有病原体的非致命性感染会导致持久免疫力，则可以针对其开发有效的疫苗。

There are pathogens against which it is very difficult to design a vaccine. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is notoriously one of them,恶性疟原虫，疟疾的原因是另一个。尽管付出了很大的努力，但未能针对这些祸害开发疫苗，这是由于病原体的特性所致，这意味着我们没有对它们产生有效的自然免疫力。

埃博拉病毒不是一种病原体：如果我们生存，我们就会免疫。

This is not to diminish the difficulties of producing safe and effective vaccines even when this fundamental requirement is met. Live attenuated vaccines may not be completely safe, while subunit vaccines (based on recombinant proteins), which are safe, are not always effective. It takes time to engineer and test a vaccine that combines maximum safety with maximum efficacy – especially if, as in undeveloped countries and emergencies, you need a vaccine that works with just one shot, no boosters.

而且，由于其死亡率很高（估计目前在70-90％的西非破坏西非的菌株），埃博拉病毒需要昂贵的最大最大接收设施，因此疫苗的工作仅限于很少有拥有它们的实验室。

The two vaccines described by Feldmann and Thoenen in their article are in phase I trials. Their relative merits are still a辩论问题，但是在九到十八个月中，生产足够的剂量进行大规模疫苗接种时，没有任何争议。

Here’s another very simple fact (I am not pretending this is news). For purely economic reasons, resources to develop and especially to mass-produce vaccines against very dangerous but rare tropical diseases are extremely limited.

部署在利比里亚遏制病毒的3,000名美军的暴露可能会改变成本效益方程中感知到的平衡。如果埃博拉病毒确实成为地方性，平衡将永远改变。