The human trial of the ebola vaccine is beginning today in Oxford the United Kingdom as the world wakes up to the debilitating impact of the ebolaoutbreak which has killed about three thousand in West Africa.
About 60 healthy volunteers in Oxford are today being given the experimental vaccine that has proven very successful in animals.
A similar human trial is holding in the US and also in Africa at a later date.
Last night US President Barack Obama urged aid groups and other nations to dramatically escalate their response to the Ebola outbreak in western Africa, warning that the epidemic is spiraling out of control.
“If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected, with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us,” Obama said yesterday after getting briefed by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The U.S. is deploying about 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region to assist with shipping and distributing medical equipment, sanitation kits and body bags, among other supplies. American personnel also will help build as many as 20 100-bed treatment centers and train about 500 health-care providers in the region.
The Pentagon is asking Congress to shift another $500 million in its budget for Ebola response, doubling the amount it’s seeking to spend from its contingency fund to as much as $1 billion, the White House said yesterday.
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