Man injects himself with Ebola intentionally in a bid to battle the deadly disease

Peter Hubbard                                                     

A man has revealed he has been injected with the Ebola virus on purpose in a bid to fight the deadly disease.

Peter Hubbard said he hopes the small risk he is taking could help create a vaccine to prevent further outbreaks of the disease, which has claimed thousands of lives in West Africa.

Speaking from his apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, Mr. Hubbard, a consultant who specialises in natural gas and peer markets, said: "I get a lot of satisfaction out of the fact that this could potentially develop into a viable vaccine that prevents another outbreak. It might not help out with the current outbreak but it could prevent a future one, so that's a real plus in my book."

Mr. Hubbard, 35, is one of 20 people taking part in clinical trials for a vaccine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States.

The vaccine he is trialing, co-developed by GlaxoSmithKline and the NIH, consists of a common cold virus, called an adenovirus that has been engineered to carry two genes of the Ebola virus. Animal testing has shown that when the adenovirus infects cells, the Ebola genes produce harmless proteins that stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies to the deadly disease.

Despite being injected with parts of the virus on September 9, Mr. Hubbard revealed that he felt so healthy he has even taken part in a marathon. He said: "I feel great, yeah. In fact, I couldn't tell where the injection site was thirty minutes after it. I ran a marathon on Sunday. I'm alive and kicking."

Hubbard also revealed it was the fifth vaccine study he has participated in, having previously been a test subject for vaccines for malaria, HIV, chickungunya and H1N1.

He said: "I do have a joke; that with all of these vaccine trials that I've done, that if plague and pestilence were to sweep throughout the land, I'd be the last man standing.

"But honestly, I'm not worried about an Ebola outbreak because I've taken the time to inform myself and I realise that there's very low risk for that."

Around 5,000 people have been killed by Ebola, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the three African nations hardest hit by the virus, which spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

The GSK vaccine study is being fast-tracked and, if the results are successful, the company plans to build a stockpile of up to 10,000 doses for emergency deployment.