Switzerland tests GlaxoSmithKline’s Ebola vaccine on volunteers going to Africa

Switzerland has approved the testing of an experimental Ebola vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on 120 healthy volunteers, some of whom will be traveling to West Africa as medical staff. Some of the volunteers are medical students.

The trial which was approved on Tuesday, will be carried out on the participants at the Lausanne University Hospital, with the support of the World Health Organization (W.H.O).

The volunteers will be monitored for six months to measure the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

The hospital’s spokesman, Darcy Christen, said: "Fifty front-line humanitarian workers going into the field will receive the vaccine. The other 70 are not being deployed and of those 20 will receive the placebo and 50 the vaccine. Volunteers going into the field will not receive the placebo, for ethical reasons."

There are currently no proven drugs or vaccines for Ebola but drug manufacturers have vowed to hasten the normal lengthy development process of some vaccines being produced with the backing of governments and donors worldwide.

The GSK vaccine, which is already undergoing safety tests in Britain, the United States and Mali, is one of two leading vaccine candidates now in early human testing.