GSK ships Ebola vaccine to Liberia

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has shipped the first batch of a new vaccine it has developed to help fight Ebola to Liberia.

Although only 300 vials of the new treatment have initially been sent to West Africa, they are set to form the basis of a large-scale trial to test the effectiveness of experimental Ebola drugs over the coming weeks in a bid to lower the mortality rates related to the life-threatening disease.

The phase III trial will be led by the US National Institutes of Health and will involve around 30,000 participants, with one-third of these set to receive the GSK vaccine.

During the trial, experimental treatments are going to be compared to control drugs to assess their effectiveness.

Regulatory approval needs to be sought before the tests can begin in Liberia, but further shipments are scheduled to bring greater doses of the injection to the region.

Chairman of global vaccines at GSK Dr Moncef Slaoui commented: "Shipping the vaccine today is a major development and shows that we remain on track with the accelerated development of our candidate Ebola vaccine."