Saturday, September 27, 2014 | 9:40 AM
MONROVIA, Liberia (AFP) – The World Health Organization said urgently awaited vaccines for the deadly Ebola disease could be ready early next year.
“If everything goes well, we may be able to begin using some of these vaccines in some of the affected countries at the very beginning of next year,” WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny said.
Currently, there is no licenced treatment or vaccine against the virus, and the UN health agency has endorsed rushing experimental prototypes through testing.
WHO is focusing on two vaccines: one made by British company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and the other by US group NewLink Genetics. It is working with both companies to accelerate clinical trials, Kieny told reporters in Geneva.
Another experimental vaccine by US company Johnson & Johnson had not been ruled out, but “they are clearly behind by a few months,” she said.
Some clinical trials of the GSK vaccine have begun in the United States and Britain, and other trials are expected to begin in Mali next week.
Trials of the NewLink vaccine are also set to start “imminently” in the United States.
If shown to be safe, thousands of doses of both experimental vaccines should be available by January.
WHO is also trying to accelerate the development of around half a dozen treatments for Ebola, including the prototype ZMapp drug already given to US and Spanish aid workers with promising results.
Supplies of the drug have been exhausted.
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Ebola vaccines next year, says WHO
