Ebola vaccines to be tried in West Africa

Ebola vaccines to be sent to worst affected regions amid reports that the disease may be weakening

The first batch of an experimental vaccine against Ebola has been dispatched to West Africa, where large scale trials are expected to begin in the coming weeks.

The first people to get the vaccine will be healthcare workers who are caring for patients being cured for the disease. Researchers hope to enrol up to 30,000 people in the vaccine trial.

The vaccine was co-developed by the National Institutes of Health in the United States and Okairos, a biotechnology firm acquired by UK drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2013, is now being tested in safety trials in Britain, the US, Switzerland and Mali.

The vaccine uses a type of chimpanzee cold virus to deliver safe genetic material from the Zaire strain of Ebola, the strain responsible for the current West African epidemic.

According to GSK, data shows that the vaccine is safe in people, including in a West African population and in a range of dose levels.

In the meantime, the Liberian deputy health minister made an announcement on Friday that the country only has five remaining confirmed cases of the disease.

"We have five confirmed Ebola cases in Liberia as of today," said Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads the country's Ebola taskforce.

"It means that we are going down to zero, if everything goes well, if other people don't get sick in other places."

Furthermore, Sierra Leone lifted quarantine measures imposed at the height of the Ebola epidemic on Friday.

The country of six million had restricted travel for around half its population, sealing off six of its 14 districts in response to the outbreak which has killed more than 3,000 Sierra Leoneans.

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the worst in history, appears to be weakening but cautioned against complacency.

The epidemic has seen 21,724 cases reported in nine countries since it started in Guinea a year ago. Some 8,641 people have died.