U.S. scientists will begin enrolling patients as soon as next week in clinical safety trials of GlaxoSmithKline PLC's experimental Ebola vaccine as the death toll from the disease rises in West Africa.
The National Institutes of Health's Vaccine Research Center received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to start the Phase 1 trial, Michael Kurilla, director of the Office of Biodefense, Research Resources and Translational Research, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. A Phase 1 trial is the first test of a drug or vaccine in humans to assess safety and whether it works similarly to how it does in animals.
The current outbreak has killed 1,427 people in four countries and may soon claim more deaths than all previous Ebola outbreaks combined. The NIH and London-based Glaxo are jointly developing the experimental vaccine, which doesn't contain any infectious Ebola virus. Health authorities are discussing whether to give the vaccine to at-risk people in West Africa, Kurilla said.