Ebola death toll set to reach 10000, says WHO; US begins new human trial

Ebola, Oct 23: As the medical experts are struggling to find a cure to the Ebola epidemic, the number of people contracted with the deadly virus hits 10,000 in West Africa, the World Health Organization said.

The WHO said that nearly 9,936 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which are the worst-hit, have contracted the disease. In total, 4,877 people have so far died, said the UN health body. The experts have warned that the rate of infections could reach 10,000 a week by early December.

New human trial of vaccine begis in US

Meanwhile, the US health officials said on Wednesday that they have started a new human trial of an Ebola vaccine at a government-run hospital outside Washington, DC. Already two trials are underway in US and trials are also under way in Britain and Mali.

The new vaccine is made using an animal virus called vesicular stomach virus, or VSV, genetically engineered with a piece of Ebola virus.

The death toll figures were released at a press conference by the WHO in Geneva on Wednesday .

A AFP report said that doses of the experimental rVSV vaccine against the deadly virus arrived at the Geneva University Hospital from Canada. The vaccine, developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines identified by the WHO.

US pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson on Wednesday announced that it would spend USD 200 million on an Ebola vaccine programme that is in development.

Oneindia News