TORONTO - A senior official of the World Health Organization says experimental Ebola vaccines are not a magic bullet that will resolve the crisis in West Africa.
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny says vaccines may play a significant role in bringing the outbreak under control, but they are only one part of the effort.
Kieny is the WHO's point person for development of Ebola vaccines and drugs; she was speaking after an international summit on speeding up development of vaccines.
She says the first use of the vaccines in affected West African countries could begin in late December in Liberia as part of a clinical trial.
Kieny says its not clear right now if both of the leading candidate vaccines will be ready for use in December or if the one being developed by GlaxoSmithKline will start before the Canadian-made vaccine.
Safety testing of the Canadian vaccine, which is being developed by American biotech firm NewLink Genetics, is several weeks behind the work on the GSK vaccine.
The first two clinical trials of the Canadian vaccine have started in Bethesda, Md., at the National Institutes of Health and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Four more are to start soon in Germany, Switzerland, Gabon and Kenya.
Kieny told a press conference today that there could be several hundred thousand doses of Ebola vaccines that can be used in trials within the first half of 2015.
Earlier this week NewLink's CEO, Dr. Charles Link, told The Canadian Press his company may have between 700,000 and seven million doses by the end of this year, depending on how much vaccine is needed to protect each person. That information will be established by the safety studies now underway.
Kieny suggests for planning purposes it is better to go with numbers that appear realistic rather than ones that are more ambitious.
