The World Health
Organization announced that clinical trials of a preventative vaccine for the
Ebola virus made by British pharma company GlaxoSmithKline may begin next month
and made available by 2015.
According to AFP, Jean-Marie Okwo Bele, the WHO’s head of vaccines and immunisation, said this; adding that he was optimistic about making the vaccine commercially available.
According to AFP, Jean-Marie Okwo Bele, the WHO’s head of vaccines and immunisation, said this; adding that he was optimistic about making the vaccine commercially available.
“We are targeting
September for the start of clinical trials, first in the United States and
certainly in African countries, since that’s where we have the cases. We think
that if we start in September, we could already have results by the end of
the year. And since this is an emergency, we can put emergency procedures in
place … so that we can have a vaccine available by 2015.”
There is currently no
available cure or vaccine for Ebola, a virus that causes severe fever and, in
the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It has claimed close to 1,000 lives in
the latest epidemic to spread across west Africa this year. Several vaccines
are being tested, and a treatment made by San Diego-based Mapp
Biopharmaceutical, ZMapp, has shown promising results on monkeys and may have been
effective in treating two Americans recently infected in Africa.
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