AFP – Ebola vaccine trials are set to start in Switzerland this week after receiving the green light from the country’s authorities, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday.
Swiss regulators announced they would allow trials of an experimental vaccine made by Britain’s GlaxoSmithKine, and tests on some 120 individuals were set to get under way at the CHUV hospital in Lausanne Friday, the hospital said.
“We have never before received so many volunteers so quickly,” Blaise Genton, who heads CHUV’s infectuous disease division, told reporters.
He said the volunteers, who must be between the ages of 18 and 65, were mainly medical students and would all receive 800 Swiss francs ($845, 665 euros) for their participation.
Genton stressed they would receive payment for their time, since they would be spending “numerous hours with us”.
Most of the volunteers will receive the experimental GSK vaccine called ChAd3, which is based on a genetically modified chimpanzee adenovirus, but 20 of them would receive a placebo he said.
