[The embarrassing lessons of Ebola: scientific knowledge comes too late]

The current Ebola epidemic in Western Africa painfully illustrates both the devastating power of a deadly virus once introduced into a severely compromised health care system, and the unpreparedness of Western countries to respond appropriately. After at least 3857 casualties there has still been hardly any scientific evaluation of therapeutic or preventive treatments. The first uncontrolled observations of a new cocktail of monoclonal antibodies look promising, but given the size of the epidemic, only large-scale vaccination might be sufficient for effective control.