Woman treated with vaccine healthy after Ebola accident

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Woman treated with vaccine healthy after Ebola accident

Updated Thu. Apr. 2 2009 9:39 AM ET

The Associated Press

HAMBURG -- A German researcher who received an experimental Canadian vaccine

after being exposed to the deadly Ebola virus has passed the disease's 21-day

incubation period without showing any sign of falling ill.

Dr. Stephan Guenther, head of the laboratory where the 45-year-old woman worked,

says that she is being prepared for release from a Hamburg hospital.

The researcher, whose identity has not been released, was conducting experiments

on mice when a needle accidentally slipped and nicked her finger through three

layers of protective gloves.

Within 48 hours, she was administered an experimental vaccine for Ebola

developed in Winnipeg, but never tried before on humans.

It remains unclear whether the vaccine prevented the woman from falling ill or

whether she was never infected with the deadly virus in the laboratory of the

Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg.

Guenther said researchers will analyze the woman's blood for antibodies in an

attempt to determine whether they came solely from the vaccine or whether she

was generating others on her own, signalling that she had been infected.

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