TORONTO - The Canadian government says experts, not politicians, will decide how donated Canadian Ebola vaccine will be used.
Canadian Heritage Minister Shelly Glover says politics has no place in the decisions on how best to use the 800 to 1,000 doses Canada has promised to donate.
Canada announced Tuesday that it would redirect hundreds of doses of the experimental vaccine to the outbreak response after the World Health Organization said it would be ethical to use untested therapies in West Africa.
The available supplies of the Canadian vaccine had been produced for a clinical trial. The vaccine was developed by scientists at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
To date the only person who has received the vaccine was a German researcher who pricked her finger with a needle containing Ebola virus in 2009.
The woman survived, but it was never clear if the vaccine was the reason. It was possible she was not infected in the first place.
