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Johnson & Johnson and Bavarian Nordic formulated a 2-part Ebola vaccine that made a durable immune response of 100 percent with its healthy volunteers that were given the trial. This vaccine development is a move due to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2013-2016 where 11,300 people died.

Matthew Snape, a researcher at the University of Oxford said that the vaccine's persistence in the immunity of the one-year post-immunization process is immensely impressive. All the participants in the trial of the vaccine retained Ebola-specific antibodies until the end of the research study. This result raises the bar of hope that this newly formulated vaccine could induce response to Ebola virus that would last for several years.

The vaccine was a 2-part formulation where phase 1 trial gathered volunteers aged 18-50 years old living in the United Kingdom. The participants in the trial were selected to either receive a placebo, a saltwater injection or the 2-vaccine regimen. Eight months after the immunization, the initial results displayed tolerability, safety, and durability of immune response that was induced by the vaccine regimen in all of the participants, the Pharmacy Times reported.

A follow-up test was conducted a year after the trial and Ebola virus antibodies were present in a 100 percent representation in the vaccine recipients. Researchers have decided that a further study on these findings should be conducted to assess the 1-year response durability.

This new vaccine labeled as the prime-boost is currently being tested globally for trials that include 1,000 subjects in the African continent. The research results based on phase 1 clinical trial were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the CBC News reports.

It has already been sent to the World Health Organization for Emergency Use Assessment and Listing for a contingent vaccine that might possibly be deployed in the event that another Ebola outbreak springs forth. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease support the testing and development of this new formulation of experimental vaccines.