Ebola Update: Texas Female Nurse Could Not Identify Breach in Protocols, Russia to Introduce Vaccines Within Six Months

Russia, which, fortunately, has not had any cases of Ebola, announced it has created three vaccines that could cure and prevent the further spread of the virus not only in West Africa but in other parts of the world as well.

Russia said the three Ebola vaccines are being targeted for production "within the next six months, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told Rossiya 1 television. She said scientists used an inactive strain of the virus to develop one of the vaccines.

A licensed treatment for the highly contagious disease has yet to be secured by global health experts and pharmaceutical companies. But several countries, including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, are already trying to develop an effective vaccine against the dreaded virus, which has so far claimed 4,033 lives as of Friday, latest data released by the World Health Organization said. A total of 8,399 cases are being monitored.

Most of those who died came from the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Liberia reported 4,076 cases and 2,316 deaths. It is followed by Sierra Leone with 2,950 cases and 930 deaths.

Other nations that have reported incurring Ebola cases include the U.S. and Spain.

Meantime, the U.S. female nurse who tended to a Liberian Ebola patient in Texas, has been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control to have contracted the deadly disease. This signals the first time a person right inside the U.S. has contracted the virus.

Thomas Eric Duncan, the patient the Texas health care worker tended, had died.

The CDC said the female nurse contracted the disease because of a "breach in protocol" as she took about caring for Duncan. She was isolated soon after symptoms started and remains so now, the agency said in a statement.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said they interviewed the female nurse and asked where she thinks she had a lapse in the protocols. She replied she could not "identify the specific breach" that eventually made her get infected with the virus. Frieden said the agency is "deeply concerned" about this particular case because the female Texas health care worker had gotten infected at a time when full precautions against Ebola transmission has been put in place. It was revealed that the nurse was wearing a gown, gloves, mask and a shield while tending to Duncan.

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