What Is Legionnaires’ Disease? All About the Germ Causing the New York City Outbreak

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An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the South Bronx has killed two people and sickened dozens more, and New York City health officials are urging anyone with symptoms of the lung infection to promptly seek medical attention.

But wait, wait, wait. What is Legionnaires’ in the first place?

From 8,000 to 18,000 people are hospitalized each year in the US with Legionnaires’ disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s an infectious disease, but unlike other things like influenza and the common cold, it doesn’t spread from person to person; people catch it by inhaling mist from water systems harboring Legionella bacteria. The first known outbreak occurred in 1976, at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, which is where the name comes from.

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Symptoms can show up two days to two weeks after someone is exposed, and can include fever, cough, chills, muscle aches, headache, fatigue, confusion, loss of appetite, and diarrhea.

“It is a true bacterial pneumonia. That’s why it is severe, but at the same time it doesn’t make everyone ill, and it doesn’t kill everybody,” Hassan Bencheqroun, MD, an interventional pulmonologist and critical care specialist at Pacific Pulmonary Medical Group, and an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Riverside, explained to Health. “Those that develop the pneumonia and those that die from it are those that have risk factors.”

These risk factors include:

• Being 50 or older
• Having a chronic lung condition such as asthma or emphysema
• Smoking cigarettes
• Taking medications that suppress the immune system
• Having an immune-suppressing illness

RELATED: 10 Places With Measles or Other Outbreaks

Legionella pneumophila is the strain responsible for 90% of cases of Legionnaires’ disease. The bug lives in the condensers of large air conditioning systems, hot water tanks, whirlpool spas, cooling towers, even ornamental fountains. While low levels of the bacteria won’t lead to an outbreak, “it’s when it multiplies to the level that it would cause disease that we worry,” Dr. Bencheqroun explained.

“Legionella is usually a rarer cause of pneumonia,” Belinda Ostrowsky, MD, MPH, infectious disease attending physician and director of antibiotic stewardship at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx, added in an interview with Health. “In the Bronx we can see clusters (increased number of cases) in the summer months.  Clusters can also be seen at times due to specific environmental sources.”

Investigators have honed in on cooling towers at the region’s busiest hospital and a mall/movie theater complex as the source of the current outbreak underway in the Bronx. To confirm that these structures are the outbreak source, medical sleuths must match the DNA signature of the bacteria in the towers to the bacteria that’s making people sick.

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Death rates from Legionnaires’ disease range from 5% to 30%. Some patients will get better with just a few days of intravenous antibiotics, while others may need to spend ten days to two weeks in the intensive care unit, according to Dr. Bencheqroun. “Most of these people have an incredible amount of inflammation in the lining of their lungs, so their oxygen level is very low,” he says. Some people may simply need some extra oxygen, while others may need to be on a ventilator.

The good news, Dr. Bencheqroun says, is that inexpensive, very effective drugs for treating Legionnaires’ disease are available. “We have excellent antibiotics that treat this pneumonia, and these antibiotics are not complex, third tier, only-accessible-to-the-rich kinds of antibiotics,” he said. “Most of the cases of Legionella pneumonia that we diagnose, we send home, and they restart their life with just a story to be told.”

RELATED: 10 States Where Rare and Exotic Diseases Lurk

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Mineral Supplement: Wild Chimps May Eat Clay for Health

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Chimpanzees in Uganda have started eating clay to supplement the minerals in their diet, researchers report.

The clay consumed by the chimps in the Budongo forest also helps them “detox” and digest their food, the study authors added.

The scientists observed wild chimps in the forest eating and drinking from clay pits and termite mounds. This change in diet may be partly due to the widespread destruction of raffia palm trees that the chimps typically relied on for their minerals.

“Raffia is a key source of sodium, but to our surprise the sodium content was very low in the diet so this does not appear to be the main reason for the new clay-bingeing,” the study’s lead author, Vernon Reynolds, emeritus professor of biological anthropology at University of Oxford in England, said in a university news release.

“Instead, the wide range of minerals present in their diet suggests that clay is eaten as a general mineral supplement,” he added.

Findings from the study were published online July 28 in the journal PLoS One.

The study team observed the chimps using leaves like sponges. The chimps dipped the leaves in clay water and then squeezed the liquid out of the leaves with their tongues. They also used their fingers to take lumps of clay directly from the ground and then ate it.

An analysis of the clay showed it’s high in a number of minerals, but particularly aluminium. The chimps’ diet consists mainly of fruits and leaves and is high in tannins. The clay may provide a way for the chimps to neutralize the tannins, the researchers suggested.

The study authors noted that local women in Budongo often drink or eat forest clay mixed with water when they have stomach problems and during pregnancy.

Along with aluminium, the clay also contains sodium, calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium, according to the paper.

More information

Look up the nutrient content of foods at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Too Much Facebook, Twitter Tied to Poor Mental Health in Teens

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Teens who frequently use social media are more likely to say they struggle with mental health concerns that are not being addressed, new Canadian research reveals.

At issue is the amount of time adolescents spend browsing and posting on sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

“It is difficult to speculate what mechanisms may link the use of social networking sites to mental health problems,” said study author Dr. Hugues Sampasa-Kanyinga, from the department of epidemiology at Ottawa Public Health in Ottawa, Canada.

While the study did not prove a cause-and-effect link, Sampasa-Kanyinga noted that the “use of social networking sites can lead to poor mental health, and poor mental health may be a reason why youth use social networking sites. That said, it could be that kids with mental health problems are seeking out interactions as they are feeling isolated and alone. Or it could be that greater time online exposes one to more opportunities for cyberbullying, for instance.”

Sampasa-Kanyinga and study co-author Dr. Rosamund Lewis reported their findings online recently in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

In the study, the researchers analyzed part of a youth health survey that tallied responses from more than 750 students who were enrolled in grades 7 through 12 (average age of 14) in Ottawa.

Just over a quarter said they accessed social networking sites for more than two hours every day, while about a fifth said they never did or did so rarely. More than half (54 percent) said they surfed such sites, but for two hours or less daily.

Nearly two-thirds described their mental health status as either “excellent” or “very good.” About a fifth said their mental state was “good,” while about 17 percent described it as “poor.”

In addition, about a quarter said they had mental health support needs that were going unmet, while the remainder said they were getting the help they felt they needed. About 13 percent said they had contemplated suicide.

Ultimately, the study authors determined that teens who accessed online sites two or more hours per day were more likely to describe their mental health as “poor” and less likely to have their own perceived needs for mental health support addressed.

High use of social networking was also linked to a higher risk for psychological distress and a higher likelihood for having had suicidal thoughts.

Sampasa-Kanyinga said some of the problem might lie in the anonymity of social networks, which boosts the risk for cyberbullying. Such sites also encourage teens to compare themselves to others, she noted, while making alcohol and cigarettes more appealing and accessible.

Nevertheless, she stressed that “everything is a matter of balance,” and cautioned against drawing a direct cause-and-effect link between social networking and poor mental health among teens.

“A simple use of social networking sites cannot fully explain by itself the occurrence of mental health problems,” Sampasa-Kanyinga said. “There are several factors that could interact to explain mental health outcomes,” she said, including substance use, bullying, body image and weight concerns, and family history and context.

That said, she advised parents to limit their child’s social networking time to under two hours a day, while remaining on the lookout for mood changes, dietary shifts, sleep issues and unusual behavior.

Scott Campbell, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, described the study as “interesting,” while suggesting that the effort “actually raises more questions than it helps answer.”

Campbell, who was not involved with the study, pointed out that asking teens to quantify hours spent online is unreliable, given that Internet use — unlike, say, movies — is not easily measured in blocks of time. He also said that “the social implications of social network sites are highly dependent on how people use them, not just how much they use them.”

“Generally speaking,” Campbell said, “I would add that too much of anything is going to have negative implications, whether it be kale or social media.” But he said more research would be needed to develop “a more nuanced picture of how different uses of social network sites by youth are associated with mental health indicators.”

More information

There’s more on adolescent mental health at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Regular, Moderate Coffee Drinking Tied to Better Brain Health in Seniors

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A study of more than 1,400 Italian seniors finds links between patterns of coffee consumption and their risk for “mild cognitive impairment” — declines in memory and thinking that are often a precursor to dementia.

The study could only point to associations, not cause-and-effect, the investigators said. But prior research has suggested that caffeine might impact neurological health.

In the study, a team led by Dr. Vincenzo Solfrizzi of the University of Bari Aldo Moro, looked at the coffee consumption of 1,445 Italians aged 65 to 84. The participants’ mental health was also tracked for a median of three-and-a-half years.

Reporting earlier this week in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the research team found that people who consistently drank about one or two cups of coffee per day had a lower rate of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) than those who never or rarely drank the brew.

The beneficial association was not found among people whose habitual coffee intake exceeded two cups per day, Solfrizzi’s group added.

And in what they called an “interesting” finding, the researchers found that the rate of MCI actually rose over time for seniors who bumped up their daily intake by a cup of coffee or more daily. Those participants had a rate of MCI that was about one-and-a-half times higher than that of long-term, moderate coffee drinkers (one to two cups per day) whose daily intake didn’t increase.

The bottom line, according to the study authors: “Older individuals who never or rarely consumed coffee and those who increased their coffee consumption habits had a higher risk of developing MCI” compared to moderate coffee drinkers.

How might java influence brain health? According to the authors, mouse studies suggest that caffeine may have a “neuroprotective” effect in minimizing damage from the buildup of amyloid protein plaques — long linked to Alzheimer’s disease. And while “moderate” levels of caffeine have seemed to boost memory in rodents, higher doses may hinder it, Solfrizzi’s team said.

Moderate caffeine intake might also help the aging brain by boosting insulin sensitivity, cutting the odds for type 2 diabetes. Diabetes has long been linked to a higher risk for memory woes, the researchers said.

Still, more research is needed to strengthen the notion that one of the world’s favorite drinks might help ward off dementia.

“Larger studies with longer follow-up periods should be encouraged . . . so hopefully opening new ways for diet-related prevention of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,” the Italian team concluded.

More information

Visit the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation for more on coffee and dementia.

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Noninvasive Stimulation Gets Legs Moving After Spinal Cord Injury

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A noninvasive procedure might help people with paralysis move their legs without the need for surgery or implanted devices, new research suggests.

The treatment approach is called transcutaneous stimulation, where a device delivers an electrical current to the spine through electrodes placed on the outside of the lower back.

In a recent trial of the device, five paralyzed men were able to generate steplike movements. The men didn’t walk, but moved while their legs were suspended in braces hung from the ceiling. This enabled them to move without resistance from gravity.

“These encouraging results provide continued evidence that spinal cord injury may no longer mean a lifelong sentence of paralysis, and support the need for more research,” Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, said in an institute news release.

These findings come on the heels of another successful study using spinal stimulation, but with a surgically implanted electrodes. Electrical stimulation with implanted electrodes allowed the men to voluntarily flex their toes, ankles and knees, and one man was even able to stand unassisted for short periods. The strength and precision of their movements improved over time with intense physical rehabilitation, according to that study, published in April 2014 in the journal Brain.

The latest study, however, focuses on a nonsurgical option.

“The potential to offer a life-changing therapy to patients without requiring surgery would be a major advance; it could greatly expand the number of individuals who might benefit from spinal stimulation. It’s a wonderful example of the power that comes from combining advances in basic biological research with technological innovation,” said Pettigrew.

The current study’s leader, V. Reggie Edgerton, a distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles, expressed similar thoughts.

“There are a lot of individuals with spinal cord injury that have already gone through many surgeries and some of them might not be up to or capable of going through another,” said Edgerton in the news release. “The other potentially high impact is that this intervention could be close to one-tenth the cost of an implanted stimulator.”

The men involved in the study were all paralyzed for at least two years. They underwent a 45-minute transcutaneous stimulation sessions on a weekly basis for about 18 weeks. While undergoing the stimulation, the men were periodically instructed to either try to move their legs or to remain passive.

In addition to the noninvasive stimulation, the men also received several minutes of conditioning. Their legs were moved for them in a steplike pattern.

During the final four weeks of the study, the men were also given the drug buspirone. The medication, which acts like serotonin, has been shown to promote movement in mice with spinal cord injuries.

When the study began, the men’s legs only moved if the stimulation was strong enough to trigger involuntary movements. During therapy, men who tried to move their legs even more developed a significantly wider range of movement, the study found.

After four weeks of both therapy and physical training, the men’s voluntary range of motion doubled while receiving the stimulation. Researchers explained that the treatment worked by reactivating dormant connections between the brain and the spine.

Recordings of electrical signals in the men’s leg muscles increased while the amount of stimulation remained the same, suggesting communication between the brain and spine was being reestablished.

“It’s as if we’ve reawakened some networks so that once the individuals learned how to use those networks, they become less dependent and even independent of the stimulation,” Edgerton said.

By the end of the study, with the medication, the men were able to move their legs with no stimulation at all. On average, their range of motion was the same as when they were moving while receiving stimulation.

Findings from the study were published July 30 in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

The study authors plan to conduct more research to determine if noninvasive spinal stimulation could enable paralyzed patients to bear their own weight the way people with surgically implanted devices can. In addition, they want to investigate if this noninvasive therapy can also help people regain the ability to sweat, regulate blood pressure and control bladder, bowel and sexual function.

The researchers also hope to learn if this external stimulation can help those who are partially paralyzed.

Despite the promise of noninvasive spinal cord stimulation, the researchers said surgically implanted devices may still be needed by some patients.

More information

Learn more about spinal cord injury from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

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Stay Safe When Temperatures Rise

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Extremely hot weather can be deadly if you don’t take the proper precautions, an expert warns.

There were 123 heat-related deaths in the United States in 2014, according to the National Weather Service.

“People suffer heat-related illnesses when their bodies are unable to compensate and properly cool themselves,” Dr. Richard Schwartz, chair of emergency medicine at Georgia Regents University in Augusta, said in a university news release.

Signs that the heat is getting to be too much include: weakness; heavy sweating; nausea; giddiness; dizziness; collapse; fatigue; and cool, clammy, red or flushed skin, according to Schwartz. If you experience these symptoms, move into an air-conditioned area, rest and drink cool beverages, he recommended.

But, there are ways to prevent heat illness from occurring, he added.

“No matter if you’re in the garden, on the playing field, at the beach or at the construction site, summer activity should be balanced with measures that aid the body’s cooling mechanisms and prevent heat-related illness,” he advised.

On hot days, try to limit your outdoor activity to early morning or early evening. If you’re outside during the day, take regular breaks in shady areas or indoors.

Avoid overexertion on hot days. If doing activities in the heat makes your heart pound and leaves you gasping for breath, move to a cool or shaded area to rest. This is especially crucial if you become lightheaded, confused, weak or faint, Schwartz said.

Try to stay out of the sun. If you have to be outside, apply sunscreen and wear lightweight, loose-fitting, light-colored clothing and a wide-brimmed hat. If you work in the sun, take frequent breaks and try not to push yourself too hard.

Be sure to drink plenty of fluids. If you’re doing intense exercise in the heat, drink two to four glasses of cool fluids each hour. A sports drink can replace salts and minerals lost in sweat. Even if you’re swimming, you need to drink plenty of fluids, Schwartz said.

Don’t eat a heavy or hot meal before you go outside in hot weather, because doing so will cause your body to heat up faster. Don’t drink liquids with alcohol or large amounts of sugar, and avoid extremely cold beverages, which can cause stomach cramps.

If you’re outside during hot weather, monitor the condition of family members, friends and co-workers, and have someone keep an eye on you, too. If you’re 65 or older, ask a relative or friend to check on you twice a day during a heat wave. If you know a senior, check on them often during hot weather.

If your home doesn’t have air conditioning, find a public place that does. Taking a cool shower or bath is another way to keep cool if you don’t have air conditioning, Schwartz said. Try to avoid using your stove or oven because they can significantly raise the temperature in your home.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about extreme heat.

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Smog Threatens Visitors to U.S. National Parks: Report

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Air pollution afflicts many national parks across the United States, a new study suggests.

Air quality in some of the parks is as bad or worse than in some major cities because of pollution from sources such as coal-fired power stations, the National Parks Conservation Association says in a new report.

“Our parks remain under threat from air pollution, harming visitors’ health, reducing visibility, and driving the impacts of climate change,” said Ulla Reeves, manager of the association’s Clean Air Campaign.

Researchers examined 48 national parks with the greatest Clean Air Act protections. They discovered that 75 percent of them sometimes have “moderate” or worse ozone pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index. These levels are dangerous for sensitive groups, such as children with asthma.

Four parks — Joshua Tree, Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite — regularly have air that’s considered unhealthy. Some of the parks have unhealthy air for more than a month each year, typically during the summer, the report notes.

All 48 parks studied have haze pollution that limits how far people can see. On average, park visitors miss out on 50 miles of scenery, which is equal to the length of Rhode Island, the researchers point out.

The study also noted that 90 percent of national parks are experiencing extreme weather linked to climate-changing air pollution. The parks are hotter, wetter or drier than they were over most of the past century.

“As Americans flock to our national parks this summer to enjoy the great outdoors, they expect and deserve to find clean, healthy air. Sadly that is not always the case,” Reeves said in an association news release.

More information

The California Environmental Protection Agency outlines the health effects of air pollution.

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Stand, Don’t Sit, to Get Healthier, Researchers Say

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 30, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Sitting too long may be hazardous to your health, even if you exercise regularly, Australian researchers report.

A new study found that sitting appears to be linked to increased blood sugar and cholesterol levels, which can lead to added weight, diabetes and heart ills. But standing more helps improve all these measures and can give you a trimmer waist to boot, the researchers said.

“Switching some of your sitting time to standing could have benefits for your heart and metabolism,” said lead author Genevieve Healy, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland in Herston.

“More time spent standing rather than sitting could improve your blood sugar, fats in the blood and cholesterol levels, while replacing time spent sitting with time walking could have additional benefits for your waistline and body mass index,” she said.

However, the study did not prove a cause-and-effect link between standing and walking more and better health.

The report was published July 31 in the European Heart Journal.

For the study, Healy and colleagues gave activity monitors to 782 men and women, aged 36 to 80, who took part in the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study.

The monitors kept track of how long each participant spent sitting/lying down, standing, walking and running.

In addition, participants provided blood samples, measurements of their blood pressure, waist circumference, and height and weight (body mass index). The monitors were worn 24 hours a day for seven days.

The researchers found that an extra two hours per day spent standing rather than sitting was associated with approximately 2 percent lower blood sugar levels and 11 percent lower average triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood).

More standing time was also associated with an increase in HDL (“good”) cholesterol and a drop in LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, the investigators found.

Moreover, replacing two hours a day of sitting time with walking or running was associated with about 11 percent lower average body mass and an almost 3-inch smaller waist.

The researchers also found that average blood sugar levels dropped by about 11 percent and average triglycerides by 14 percent for every two hours spent walking rather than sitting, while HDL cholesterol levels were higher.

“Get up for your heart health and move for your waistline,” Healy said.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said, “Many studies have found that the amount of sedentary time is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and premature death.”

People who sit for prolonged periods have a higher risk of early death, even those who regularly exercise, but the risk is most pronounced in men and women who do little or no exercise, he said.

It’s clear that sitting down for too long is bad for people’s health, said Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and author of an accompanying journal editorial.

“As a society, we have been focused too much on exercise and have paid less attention to the importance of just moving,” he said.

Lopez-Jimenez said that even if you exercise, sitting for long periods is a marker of a sedentary lifestyle.

Society, he said, values sitting and using labor-saving devices over standing, walking and moving.

“People need to recognize the importance of not sitting too long during the day,” Lopez-Jimenez said. “Avoid the mindset that says, ‘Do the least amount of effort.'”

More information

Visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for more on decreasing sedentary behavior.

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Do Sporty Teen Girls Live Longer, Healthier Lives?

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Women who exercised or played sports as teens have a lower risk of premature death from cancer or any other cause much later in life, new research shows.

The study of thousands of Chinese women aged 40 and older found that those who exercised roughly 80 minutes a week as teenagers had a 16 percent lowered risk for death from cancer and a 15 percent lowered risk for death from all causes. Participation in team sports during the teen years had almost as strong an effect.

“Adolescent exercise participation was associated with reduced risk of mortality in later life regardless of adult lifestyle or socioeconomic factors,” said lead researcher Sarah Nechuta, an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville.

“Our findings support the importance of promoting the initiation of regular exercise participation in early life and across the life course to prevent sickness and death from cancer and other chronic diseases,” she added.

Women who exercised both as teens and adults benefited most all, with risk for death from all causes and death from cancer reduced by 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively, the researchers said.

For the study, researchers used data on nearly 75,000 women, aged 40 to 70, who took part in the Shanghai Women’s Health Study. The women, who were enrolled from 1996 to 2000, were asked about exercise participation between ages 13 and 19.

Over an average of almost 13 years of follow-up, nearly 5,300 women died, including more than 2,300 from cancer and 1,620 from heart disease.

Women who had played on teams as teens had a lower risk for cancer death later in life by 14 percent, and lower risk of death from all causes by 10 percent, the researchers found.

Exercise was also associated with reduced risk of heart disease.

The report was published in the August issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Nechuta cautioned that because the participants in the study self-reported the amount of exercise they did as teens, there could be errors in the findings. The study only found an association rather than a cause-and-effect link between teen exercise and later health.

Although the participants were Chinese, Nechuta thinks the results would apply to American women as well. “There is no major reason that the overall association would be different for U.S. women,” she said.

The researchers said that exercise improves immune function, reduces inflammatory factors, decreases insulin and insulin-like growth factors, improves cholesterol and reduces blood pressure, all of which can have lifelong benefits.

While Nechuta isn’t sure if these findings would apply to men, another expert is more optimistic.

Alpa Patel, strategic director of the American Cancer Society’s cancer prevention study, said that there is no biological reason why men would not also gain lifelong benefits from exercise in adolescence.

“This study is more evidence that maintaining a healthy lifestyle from early in life is important to reducing long-term disease risk,” said Patel.

And just because you weren’t active as a teen doesn’t mean it’s too late for exercise to benefit your health, she added.

“There is a lot of evidence to support that being physically active in your adulthood is beneficial to long-term disease prevention,” Patel said.

More information

For more on the benefits of exercise, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Effective Ebola Vaccine May Be Here: Health Officials

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 (HealthDay News) — An experimental Ebola vaccine appears highly effective against the deadly infectious disease, according to an interim analysis of findings from a clinical trial being conducted in the West African nation of Guinea.

So far, the vaccine has been 100 percent effective in individuals, the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO) said in a news release on Friday.

An independent body of international experts conducted the review and recommended that the trial of the VSV-EBOV vaccine continue. The findings were published July 31 in The Lancet.

“This is an extremely promising development,” Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said in an agency news release. “The credit goes to the Guinean government, the people living in the communities and our partners in this project. An effective vaccine will be another very important tool for both current and future Ebola outbreaks.”

More research is needed to determine if the vaccine can protect large groups of people through what is called “herd immunity,” health officials added. To that end, Guinean officials have approved continuation of the clinical trial, WHO said.

“The ‘ring’ vaccination method adopted for the vaccine trial is based on the smallpox eradication strategy,” John-Arne Rottingen, director of the division of infectious disease control at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and chair of the study’s Steering Group, explained in the news release.

“The premise is that by vaccinating all people who have come into contact with an infected person you create a protective ‘ring’ and stop the virus from spreading further. This strategy has helped us to follow the dispersed epidemic in Guinea, and will provide a way to continue this as a public health intervention in trial mode,” he explained.

The clinical trial first began in Ebola-affected communities on March 23, 2015, WHO said. So far, more than 4,000 adults who had close contact with about 100 Ebola patients — including relatives, neighbors and co-workers — have voluntarily taken part in the trial.

On the basis of evidence of the vaccine’s safety, the trial will now include teens aged 13 to 17 and possibly children aged 6 to 12.

“In parallel with the ring vaccination we are also conducting a trial of the same vaccine on frontline workers,” Bertrand Draguez, medical director at Doctors Without Borders, said in the news release.

“These people have worked tirelessly and put their lives at risk every day to take care of sick people. If the vaccine is effective, then we are already protecting them from the virus. With such high efficacy, all affected countries should immediately start and multiply ring vaccinations to break chains of transmission and vaccinate all frontline workers to protect them,” Draguez said.

The VSV-EBOV vaccine was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to Merck & Co. Inc. and NewLink Genetics Corp.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about Ebola.

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