Geneva (Alliance News) - The first Ebola vaccine trials in West Africa are expected to start in Liberia as early as late January, a senior World Health Organization official said on Friday.
Some 9,000 people would take part in the study on the chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine produced by British company GlaxoSmithKline PLC, as well as VSV produced by US firm Merck & Co, said WHO Assistant Director General Marie-Paule Kieny.
Additional trials involving thousands of people are to start in February in Sierra Leone and Guinea, the other two West African countries at the centre of the Ebola epidemic.
Safety tests on humans in Western research institutions over the past months have shown acceptable results, according to Kieny.
GlaxoSmithKline shares were down 0.7% to 1,417.00 pence on Friday early afternoon.
Copyright dpa