An experimental Ebola drug will begin clinical safety trials in the US within a week.

As the death toll from the deadly haemorrhagic disease mounts in West Africa, GlaxoSmithKline scientists are enrolling patients to test this week.

The US Food and Drug Administration’s approved the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center starting the first test of the drug in humans to assess safety and whether it works similarly to how it does in animals.

The vaccine doesn’t contain any infectious Ebola virus. Health authorities are discussing whether to give the vaccine to at-risk people in West Africa.

Researchers may need to study the vaccine in humans for about a month to assess its effect.

GlaxoSmithKline refuses to comment about the trial but it has said its talking to regulators.

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