Human Ebola Vaccine Trial to Begin

The federal government will begin the first human trial testing the safety of the Ebola vaccine this week. The National Institutes of Health will expedite testing on several potential Ebola vaccines, which are different from ZMapp, the experimental drug given to two Americans who contracted the virus. It is working with GlaxoSmithKline in developing a vaccine to combat the virus, which has already killed 1,552 people during this latest outbreak. “There is an urgent need for a protective Ebola vaccine, and it is important to establish that a vaccine is safe and spurs the immune system to react in a way necessary to protect against infection,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH, said in a statement. The vaccine has “performed extremely well” in primates, but is yet to be tested on humans.