The Canadian government has said it will donate up to 1,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine to help battle the disease’s outbreak in West Africa.
It comes after the World Health Organization said it was ethical to use untested drugs on Ebola patients. However, experts say supplies of both the vaccine and the experimental drug Zmapp are limited and it could take months to develop more supplies. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed by the current outbreak in West Africa.
Canada says between 800 and 1,000 doses of the vaccine, which has only been tested on animals, will be donated to the World Health Organization (WHO) for use in West Africa. However, it will keep a small portion of the vaccine for research, and in case it is needed in Canada. The current outbreak has infected people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. Dr Gregory Taylor, deputy head of Canada’s Public Health Agency, said he saw the vaccines as a “global resource”. He said he had been advised that it would make sense for health care workers to be given the vaccine, given their increased risk of contracting the disease.
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