EBOLA USA: New Ebola Vaccine Study has begun in Maryland

The first human trials of a Canadian Ebola vaccine began Monday, part of a flood of experimental therapies rushed into testing to battle the Ebola epidemic.

Although the world has been fighting Ebola since 1976, major drugmakers showed little interest in the disease because outbreaks were small and sporadic, said Thomas Geisbert, a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch, who has studied Ebola and tested drugs against it for many years.

A volunteer receives an Ebola vaccination in Bamako, Mali.
(Photo: Alex Duval Smith, epa)

Ebola research got a jump-start after the terrorist attacks in 2001 as the government funded studies to prepare for possible bioterror attacks, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Only the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the biggest in history, has succeeded in moving experimental drugs and vaccines into larger clinical trials. There are no approved drugs or vaccines on the market, so several Ebola patients have received experimental medications.

Though some of these drugs are in short supply, experts say other approaches could be put to much greater use. Here's a summary of promising potential therapies:

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