PNAS this week celebrates 100 years of rabies vaccination by Louis Pasteur and Coworkers which took place already in 1885? We do not understand the counting as such but take the opportunity of the celebration anyhow. (From the editorial, and the featured articles it is not emerging why 100 years.) However, it was an tremendous achievement at that time and should be compared to the situation with the actual Ebola crisis: It took away the fear of fatal danger from the persons dealing with the disease and gave hope to those who were biten by mad animals.

The history of vaccination is dealt with by an nice article of Stanley Plotkin. There are additional papers on social matters of vaccination and one paper on NOD- and Toll-like agonists as adjuvants. These papers are free.

To come back to Ebola and the experimental treatment we mentioned before today 6 patients have been treated 4 improved but 2 have died from Ebola. The fatal rate would thus be 33 % versus 60 to 80 % if untreated. This is from nothing to something. However, this is no vaccination.