ZAMBIA said it would restrict entry of travellers from countries affected by the Ebola virus and would ban Zambians from travelling to those countries, in one of the strictest moves yet by a southern African country against the deadly virus.
"All delegates from any of the countries affected by Ebola virus disease are restricted from entering Zambia until further notice," the Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Saturday.
The statement also said that any Zambians arriving from those countries would be "thoroughly screened and quarantined", adding that no further travel by Zambians to such countries would be allowed.
Meanwhile, clinical trials of a preventative vaccine for the Ebola virus made by British pharma company GlaxoSmithKline may begin next month and made available by 2015, the World Health Organisation said Saturday.
"We are targeting September for the start of clinical trials, first in the United States and certainly in African countries, since that's where we have the cases," Jean-Marie Okwo Bele, the WHO's head of vaccines and immunisation, told French radio.
He said he was optimistic about making the vaccine commercially available. "We think that if we start in September, we could already have results by the end of the year.
There is currently no available cure or vaccine for Ebola, a virus that causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.
It has claimed close to 1,000 lives in the latest epidemic to spread across west Africa this year. Fatality rates can approach 90%, although the latest outbreak has killed around 55 to 60% of those infected.
Several vaccines are being tested, and a treatment made by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, ZMapp, has shown promising results on monkeys and may have been effective in treating two Americans recently infected in Africa.