Over 300,000 doses of an untested Ebola vaccine have been stockpiled by non-profit organization Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance – whose members include the World Health Organization and the World Bank. Why are they stockpiling a vaccine that isn’t approved to be administered to the public? It appears as though they may be preparing for a global emergency in the form of a full-fledged outbreak of Ebola. Businessinsider.com reports: And part of the $5 million agreement is that Merck will submit the vaccine for approval by 2017. If and when it’s approved, Gavi would presumably purchase many more doses. The vaccine in question, currently called VSV-EBOV for short, has been remarkably successful in clinical trials at preventing people in outbreak regions from getting Ebola, at least so far. In the first Phase III trial, which published preliminary results in July 2015, the vaccine was 100% effective in several thousand patients, though it only monitored them for a few months. The long-term effectiveness of the vaccine is not yet known. The researchers expect to publish the final results this spring, study lead author Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference on February 12. But for a highly contagious disease like [...]