Ebola Researchers To Speed Up Vaccine Trials
Researchers
have concluded plans to speed up vaccine trials on Ebola, which could
make it possible for healthy volunteers to start testing it as early as
next month in three countries of Gambia, Mali, and Britain.
The
vaccines will be made available to volunteers in Gambia, Mali, and
Britain in effort to curb the spread of the epidemic, which has killed
over 1,552 in West Africa so far.
Researchers
are hoping that the trials could finish by the end of the year (2014).
If the trials prove successful, vaccines could then be given to people
infected with Ebola, which is spread through bodily fluids.
This
was made known on Thursday by leading pharmaceutical giant
GlaxoSmithKline, which is developing the vaccine with the United States
National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Wellcome Trust, which is partly
financing the trials.
The statement reads that: “A
candidate Ebola vaccine could be given to healthy volunteers in the UK,
the Gambia and Mali as early as September, as part of a series of
safety trials of potential vaccines.”
However,
the trials still require ethical and regulatory approval, and will be
funded by a £2.8 million grant from the Wellcome Trust, Britain’s
Medical Research Council (MRC) and the UK Department for International
Development (DFID).
The Oxford study will involve 60 healthy volunteers, while those in the Gambia and Mali will each involve 40.
This
will also allow GSK to make some 10,000 extra doses of the vaccine so
that if the trials are successful, it could be made available to the WHO
quickly.
The
safety tests of the vaccine will take place at Oxford University
alongside a US trial run by the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Nigeria
has so far recorded 5 deaths, including the index case, a Liberian by
name Patrick Sawyer who imported the virus into the country in July.
Last
Tuesday, the Federal Government announced a new resumption date for all
private and public primary and secondary schools in the country in
order to curb the spread of the deadly disease. They are now to resume
on the 13th of October 2014.
