TORONTO - The World Health Organization says experimental Ebola vaccines may be ready to be used before the end of 2014.
The global health agency says data from the first safety studies in humans should be available by November, opening the door to their use.
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny says the first vaccine likely to be used in the outbreak would be a one developed at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
The Canadian government has donated between 800 and 1,000 doses of the experimental vaccine to help in the fight to contain the outbreak.
The company which has licensed the Canadian-made vaccine said Thursday that it had been given the go-ahead to begin a Phase 1 study of the product.
Kieny says by the end of the year there may be as many as 10,000 doses of a second vaccine, made at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and licensed to pharma giant GSK.
Kieny says if the initial data suggest the vaccines are safe to use, priority will be given to making them available to health-care workers caring for Ebola cases.
Her comments came in a press conference after a two day meeting to map out whether and how to use experimental drugs and vaccines in this outbreak, the largest on record.
