Last checked at 
By Kate Kelland
LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Almost 200 people have receivedGlaxoSmithKline's experimental Ebola vaccine in trialsin the United States, Britain, Mali and Switzerland, and thesafety data so far are "very satisfactory", scientists said onMonday.
The trials, which began just over two months ago, have beenusing healthy volunteers, rather than patients with Ebola, totest whether the vaccine is safe for humans.
The experimental shot uses a single Ebola virus gene from achimpanzee virus to generate an immune response. Because itdoesn't contain any infectious virus material, it can't infectthose being vaccinated.
Adrian Hill, a professor at Oxford University who is leadingthe British arm of the trial, said 20 people at the U.S.National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, 80 peopleat the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center forVaccine Development in Mali, 34 people out of an eventual 120 atthe University Hospital of Lausanne, and 59 out of an eventual60 at the University of Oxford had so far been given the shot.
"The safety data here have looked very satisfactory so far,"Hill said in a statement. "The response we have seen from peoplecoming forward to take part has been remarkable."
The West Africa Ebola epidemic has now infected more than13,000 people -- mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia --and killed more than 5,000 of them, according to the WorldHealth Organization (WHO).
Several drug companies are now accelerating Ebola vaccinetrials and the WHO has said it hopes one or more of the vaccinesmay be ready for some limited use in West Africa in early 2015.
GSK's vaccine and another leading candidate made by NewLinkGenetics are already in human trials. Five more shouldbegin testing in the first quarter of next year, according tothe WHO. One from Johnson & Johnson will start trials inJanuary.
Hill said the teams running the GSK vaccine trial shouldknow by late December 2014 how the immune responses of Malianhealth care workers who have had the shot compare to thoseobserved in adults given the vaccine in Britain and Switzerland. (Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
