By Gabriel Olawale

After an expert meeting last week, WHO said there is now enough information to conclude that the vaccines have “an acceptable safety profile.”

In a statement released last week, Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Head of WHO’s Ebola vaccine efforts, said “the cupboard (for Ebola vaccines) is filling up rapidly.”

She said further trials in healthy people in West Africa, including health workers, are scheduled to start later in January or early February. Several other vaccines were being developed in the U.S., Russia and elsewhere.

Despite the temporary suspension of a trial of the vaccine made by NewLink and Merck in December, the trial was put on hold while experts investigated reports of joint pain in a number of participants. No such side effects have been reported with the other vaccine.

The next phase of trials will likely take about six months and manufacturers will ramp up their production at the same time, meaning millions of doses could be available later this year. It’s unclear if that will be quick enough to help slow the epidemic, which appears to be on the decline.

So far, Ebola has sickened more than 20,000 people and killed over 8,000, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Officials estimate the death rate to be about 71 percent.

“We will have to take stock when we have the vaccines,” said Helen Rees of the University of Witwatersrand, who chaired the WHO meeting. She said experts would have to consider at that point whether it’s useful to vaccinate entire populations or focus only on high-risk groups.

GAVI, a private-public vaccine alliance, has pledged to spend $300 million on WHO-recommended Ebola vaccines, which it estimates could translate into 12 million doses.