Two experimental vaccines against Ebola are currently being tested to see whether they are safe to use in people, and health officials have said that millions of doses could be available by the end of next year. But how do the vaccines work?
Both vaccines essentially consist of a harmless virus that has been "spiked" with a protein from the Ebola virus, said Derek Gatherer, a bioinformatics researcher at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom who studies viral genetics and evolution.
If a person is given the vaccine, "the body thinks it's being infected with this rather innocuous virus, [and] part of the virus happens to be the Ebola protein," said Gatherer, who is not involved in work on the Ebola vaccines. This prompts an immune response, and the body develops antibodies against the Ebola protein, Gatherer said.
