Ebola vaccine for limited distribution likely by 2015: WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Friday said a potential vaccine against the Ebola virus disease might be ready for limited distribution in January 2015.

Marie Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director general for health information and systems, told a press conference that there are several potential candidate vaccines but the WHO was focusing on two, Xinhua reported.

One of these is based on chimpanzee adenovirus, a recombinant viral vector, developed by the company GSK. The other is based on a virus called VSV and developed by US company Newlink.

She said WHO was working with clinicians, regulators and both companies to accelerate the clinical trials of these vaccines.

She hoped WHO will have initial results on both of these potential vaccines by the end of the year and that, if everything goes well, vaccines should be available for limited groups of people, including medical staff, at the beginning of next year.

Currently there are no vaccines or medicines approved by national regulatory authorities to tackle Ebola, except for the purpose of compassionate care.

In August, a group of experts, convened by WHO, reached a consensus that the use of experimental medicines and vaccines under the exceptional circumstances of the Ebola epidemic was ethically acceptable.

As of Sep 21, the total number of cases attributed to Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal reached 6,263, including 2,917 deaths.