WHO eyes mass Ebola vaccines by mid-2015 as cases exceed 10,000

Hundreds of thousands of Ebola vaccine doses could be rolled out to West Africa by mid-2015, the World Health Organization said, after a two-year-old girl died in the first case in Mali. The death toll from the Ebola epidemic rose to 4,922 out of 10,141 known cases in eight countries through Oct. 23, the WHO said on Saturday. The three worst-hit countries of West Africa - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - account for the bulk, recording 4,912 deaths out of 10,114 cases, they said in their update.

The pharmaceutical companies developing all these vaccines are committing to ramping up the production capacity to millions of doses to be available in 2015.

WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny

There is currently no licensed cure for Ebola, which is transmitted through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or someone who has died from the disease. Meanwhile, European Union leaders agreed to boost aid to combat Ebola in west Africa to US$1.3 billion. African countries have pledged to send more than 1,000 health workers to the most severely-hit countries. With almost 10,000 people now infected, AU chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the regional bloc was responding to an urgent need for reinforcements.

Health Ebola