U.S. health officials announced today that they will begin a human Ebola vaccine trial in early September.
According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, phase 1 of the trial will test the vaccine on 20 healthy volunteers at the National Institute of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. The trial is expected to take 50 weeks and will be followed by a second trial involving a larger sample of people.
The Ebola epidemic has killed half of the 3,000 people it has infected in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria since December 2013, according to USA Today and CBS News.
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes the vaccine will be an important tool to contain the outbreak, in addition to traditional methods such as infection control, isolation, contact tracing, and quarantine of personal protective equipment.