Two leading Ebola vaccines that appear to be safe will be tested on healthy volunteers in West Africa soon.
The two most advanced Ebola vaccines - one made by GlaxoSmithKline and the other licensed by Merck and NewLink - have enough research completed on them to deem the vaccines safe enough to test on humans, reported The Associated Press.
The trials testing the vaccine will take about six months. If the trials are successful, Ebola vaccines could be made available by the end of the year.
"With Ebola, you need to find every last case and stop all transmission," Dr. Peter Piot, the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, told AP. "It may be that we won't be able to do that without a vaccine."
The vaccine made by NewLink and Merck in December was temporarily suspended because it was giving several study participants joint pains, reported AP. This wasn't a big enough flaw to entirely halt the development of the vaccine.
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, who heads the World Health Organization's Ebola vaccine efforts, told AP she doesn't expect the drug to continue to have such side effects.
The other vaccine doesn't have any reported side effects.
The Ebola virus has sickened at least 20,712 and killed at least 8,220 West Africans in the current epidemic, according to WHO's latest situation report.
