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(Adds human testing of possible vaccine, paragraphs 9-10, NewJersey patient cleared, paragraph 17)
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - The new U.S. Ebola "czar"starts work on Wednesday as the Obama administration ramps upits response to the potential spread of the virus, anddrugmakers started a project to accelerate development of avaccine and produce millions of doses.
As the administration boosted airport screening measures inresponse to criticism that it was slow to act against Ebola, aPentagon emergency Ebola medical team was scheduled to begintraining at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.
The virus has killed more than 4,500 people, predominantlyin three impoverished West African countries, in the worstoutbreak of the disease since it was identified in 1976.
U.S. President Barack Obama was set to hold a meeting onWednesday with Ron Klain, his new Ebola response coordinator, amid rising Republican criticism ahead of congressionalelections next month.
Klain, a lawyer and veteran Democratic political operative,was expected to improve coordination between the federalgovernment and the states after three cases were diagnosed inthe United States, all in Texas; Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan,who died on Oct. 8 in Dallas, and two nurses who treated him.
Leading drugmakers said on Wednesday that they planned todevelop an Ebola vaccine and produce millions of doses of themost effective experimental product for use next year.
The World Health Organization said it hopes tens of thousandof people in Africa, including front-line healthcare workers,can start receiving vaccines beginning in January.
U.S. drugmaker Johnson & Johnson announced that itaims to produce 1 million doses of its two-step vaccine nextyear, and said it has discussed collaboration with Britain'sGlaxoSmithKline, which is working on a rival vaccine.
Human testing of a second "investigational" Ebola vaccine isunder way at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's ClinicalCenter in Maryland, NIH said on Wednesday. Testing on a firstpossible vaccine began last month and initial data was expectedby the end of the year.
"The need for a vaccine to protect against Ebola infectionis urgent," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NationalInstitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He said thevaccine, called VSV-ZEBOV, was "promising."
The U.S. Defense Department's emergency medical team -including five infectious disease doctors, 20 critical carenurses and five trainers who are experts in infectious diseaseprotocols - will gather in Texas on Wednesday to start threedays of training, the Pentagon said.
NO TRAVEL BAN
The Obama administration has ratcheted up its response toEbola but so far has stopped short of a travel ban from WestAfrican countries hit by Ebola demanded by some lawmakers.
The Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday thattravelers from the three countries at the center of the epidemic- Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - would be funneled to one offive major U.S. airports conducting enhanced screening for thevirus. The restrictions on passengers whose trips originated inthose countries were due to go into effect on Wednesday.
Affected travelers will have their temperatures checked forsigns of a fever that may indicate Ebola infection, among otherprotocols, at New York's John F. Kennedy, New Jersey's Newark,Washington Dulles, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, and Chicago'sO'Hare international airports, officials said.
Two travelers from Liberia were under observation inhospitals in Chicago on Wednesday after they reported symptoms during screening at O'Hare on Tuesday.
One, a child, reportedly vomited on the flight to Chicago,health officials said. A physician at the hospital where thechild was taken said doctors suspect the patient does not haveEbola but was isolated as a precaution.
In New Jersey, a Liberian passenger detained at NewarkLiberty airport on Tuesday appears to be symptom free, GovernorChris Christie said at a news confrence. "There is no indicationthat he has been infected with Ebola," Christie said.
A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Tuesday showed thatnearly three-fourths of 1,602 Americans surveyed favored a U.S.ban on civilian air travel in and out of the three countries.
But Elhadj As Sy, secretary general of the InternationalFederation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), onWednesday said such restrictions would not effectively curbEbola.
"It (Ebola) creates a lot of fear and extreme panic thatsometimes lead to very irrational type of behaviors andmeasures, like closing borders, canceling flights, isolatingcountries, etc.," Sy told reporters in Beijing, where the IFRCwas holding a conference. "Those are not solutions."
A group of some 50 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived inLiberia on Wednesday to help treat patients.
The two U.S. nurses who contracted Ebola after treating Thomas Duncan were both improving. The U.S. National Institutesof Health (NIH) upgraded the medical condition Nina Pham onTuesday to good from fair. The other, Amber Vinson, is weak butrecovering, her mother said.
NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, an American whocontracted Ebola while working in West Africa, is free of thevirus and will leave the Nebraska Medical Center on Wednesday,the hospital said. (Additional reporting by James Harding Giahyue in Monrovia,Daniel Trotta in Havana, Ben Hirschler in London, Will Dunhamand Susan Heavey in Washington, Barbara Goldberg in New York andJulie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Writing by Jim Loney; Editing byJeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)
