Britain's
biggest drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline said on Saturday work to develop a vaccine to
combat Ebola, which has killed thousands in West Africa, was moving at a rapid
pace, Reuters reports.
"Development
of the vaccine candidate is progressing at an unprecedented rate, with first
phase 1 safety trials with the vaccine candidate underway in the USA, UK and
Mali, and further trials due to start in the coming weeks," the firm said
in a statement posted on its website.
The
company said preliminary data from the trials was expected by the end of 2014
and that, if successful, the next phase, involving the vaccination of frontline
healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, would begin in early
2015.
The
worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 4,500 people so far, most
in the trio of West African countries.
In
August, GSK said the experimental vaccine was being fast-tracked into human
studies and it planned to build a stockpile of up to 10,000 doses for emergency
deployment, if results were good.
The
GSK vaccine consists of a common cold virus, called an adenovirus, engineered
to carry two genes of the Ebola virus.
Animal
testing has shown that when the adenovirus infects cells the Ebola genes
produce harmless proteins that stimulate the immune system to produce
antibodies to Ebola.
GSK
acquired the vaccine after buying Swiss-based biotech company Okairos for 250
million euros (US$319 million) last year.
Responding
to public fears after three diagnosed cases in the United States, President
Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday not to give in to "hysteria"
about the haemorrhagic fever, which is spread through the blood, sweat or vomit
of those infected.
There
is no cure or approved vaccine yet for Ebola but several pharmaceutical
companies have been working on experimental drugs.
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