(NBC News) An Ebola vaccine made in labs at the National Institutes of Health has shown promise in animal studies. Now human clinical trials are set to begin within the next week.
The NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases partnered with drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.
About 220 healthy adults in the United States, United Kingdom and Africa are expected to participate.
“It’s really important that we understand any ethnic and geographical differences in the candidates that will be testing this vaccine,” says GlaxoSmithKline’s Donna Altenpohl.
The trials were supposed to begin later this year, but work was sped up in response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa that’s killed more than 1,500 people.
The World Health Organization says the global plan to stop the outbreak should account for much larger numbers.
Although the need for a vaccine is urgent, experts say labs cannot skip important steps in the clinical trial process.
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