The World Health Organization announced that there are ongoing studies to test the effectiveness of vaccine for Ebola, which has killed around 5,000 people worldwide.
Dr. David Wood, a WHO official, confirmed that they are conducting tests to determine whether the invented vaccine to counter Ebola virus is safe for human consumption.
"I think we have made very good progress but we are at the start of the journey. We are doing the very first studies in humans to find out if the vaccines are safe," Wood said via News24.
And once the examinations prove that the vaccine is safe for humans, Wood said that they will immediately distribute it on a larger scale in countries that were severely hit by the deadly virus over the past several months.
"If proven to be safe, we could then begin to use them on a larger scale in affected countries and some of the surrounding non-affected communities," Wood said. "These are new vaccines. We hope they will work."
According to Independent UK, one of the top candidates is GlaxoSmithKline's "ChAd3" that is currently being tested to determine if the vaccine is safe for humans. GSK reportedly manufactured additional doses of the vaccine to make themselves ready in case studies prove that the ChAD3 is safe.
Meanwhile, WHO director general Margaret Chan criticized drug companies for failing to produce medicines that would have prevented the Ebola outbreak in several countries in Africa.
Chan said that the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but drug companies were not interested in producing cure for the disease because they were aware that the African countries hit by the virus have no means to give them huge profits should they develop a vaccine back then.
"Ebola emerged nearly four decades ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure?" Chan said. "Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations. The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay."
Over the past several months, drug companies have exerted greater efforts and intensive researches to develop a vaccine, especially after WHO declared that the Ebola virus is a huge threat to international security.
