Two Ebola vaccines will be ready by early 2015
Date 2014/9/27 18:08:09 | Topic: Africa
|  The World Health Organization has announced that two experimental vaccines to cure the fatal Ebola virus will be ready by 2015.
The WHO is currently collaborating with the British company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and the American group, NewLink Genetics, to accelerate the process of clinical tests and production of Ebola vaccines, the assistant director general at the World Health Organization said on Friday.
“If everything goes well, we may be able to begin using some of these vaccines in some of the affected countries at the very beginning of next year,” Marie-Paule Kieny stated.
However, no definite treatment has so far been discovered to stop the deadly epidemic that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 people over the past few months, with over 5,700 being infected in the West African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon raised alarm about the Ebola outbreak, urging the international community to act effectively to tackle the humanitarian crisis.
Ebola is a form of hemorrhagic fever whose symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can be also spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.
The virus remains one of the world’s most virulent diseases, which kills between 25 to 90 percent of those who contract it.
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