Clinical trials of an experimental vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus, which killed nearly 1,000 people in West Africa, will begin next month, the World Health Organization has said. The vaccine, developed by British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in cooperation with US scientists, is expected to be ready in 2015.
There is no cure or vaccine that can prevent Ebola and the World Health Organization declared the virus an international health emergency last week. The outbreak has affected 1,825 people and killed nearly 1,000, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The UN health agency expects the number of infections to increase, which urges drug makers to come up with solutions as soon as possible. WHO’s head of vaccines and immunization, Jean-Marie Okwo Bele, said that clinical trials, involving humans will start in September. The vaccine, made by GSK and scientists from the US National Institute of Health’s Vaccine Research Center, has been in development since 2013 and the researchers have collected promising results in animal studies, involving primates.
And while testing starts as early as next month, even with emergency procedures put in place, the vaccine will not be available to the public before 2015. Several other vaccines are being tested and an experimental drug by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, called ZMapp, is currently used for treating Ebola patients in the US.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry announced that the man who died last week after returning from Sierra Leone wasn’t infected by the virus, according to initial laboratory results. The kingdom isn’t issuing visas to Muslim pilgrims from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in order to prevent possible spread during the annual Hajj, which gathers millions of people in Mecca. A Nigerian who showed Ebola-like symptoms and was quarantined in Hong Kong tested negative to virus, as well as a man in Romania who also was suspected of carrying the deadly disease.
Possible cases of Ebola have also been reported in several other countries – Mexico City, Greece, Benin, London, and others. In the United Arab Emirates, the Ministry of Health said that there are no cases of the virus, as the country has taken preventive measures in line with the latest WHO regulations.
