Foreign companies not interested in unprofitable Ebola vaccine (Russian expert)

Russia's former Chief Sanitary Doctor Gennady Onishchenko has told media in the Russian city of Veliky Novgorod that the chief obstacle to an effective Ebola vaccine is a lack of willingness on the part of foreign pharmaceutical giants to invest in such an unprofitable enterprise, Russian News Agency ITAR-TASS reported Friday.

Onishchenko said privately owned pharmaceutical companies possessed the means to produce an effective Ebola vaccine but simply had no commercial incentive to develop it.

"The virus is well known to us," Onishchenko said. "It first appeared in 1976, and scientists have been working on it ever since."

Onishchenko added that although Russia was not currently threatened with the prospect of an Ebola epidemic, serious measures to combat the disease needed to be taken.

Over 5,000 people have died of Ebola in the latest outbreak of the virus, with victims concentrated overwhelmingly in the West African countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
 Source:Xinhua - globaltimes.cn
22/11/14
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