Human trials sped up to deliver millions of Ebola vaccines in 2015

A two-year-girl who was Mali's first Ebola case has died, Reuters has reported, citing a health official.

The girl had been receiving treatment at a hospital in the country after testing positive for the virus upon arriving from outbreak-hit Guinea.

Drugmakers have pledged to work together to speed up Ebola safety trials in human volunteers in a bid to produce an estimated 200,000 doses of experimental vaccines by the middle of 2015.

Two leading vaccine candidates, from GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics, are in human clinical trials while another five experimental vaccines are set to begin clinical trials next year.

High risk groups, including frontline health workers in West Africa, are front of the queue to receive the vaccines by early next year.

"Vaccines are not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic," the WHO's Marie-Paule Kieny said after a meeting of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders in Geneva.

• Read: Resources pour in but the cost of fighting Ebola is huge

While money and resources continue to pour into the areas worst affected by the Ebola outbreak, the costs of fighting the disease remain huge.

Hussein Ibrahim from the International Medical Corps said it cost around £800,000 to run one clinic in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown.

Mr Ibrahim also said running a 100-bed facility needed 250 staff so the IMC needs volunteers as well as money.

ITV News Correspondent Dan Rivers reports from Sierra Leone.

Read: Two-year-old girl confirmed as first Mali Ebola case

Millions of doses of an Ebola vaccine will be ready by the end of 2015, World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

The organisation said "money will not be an issue" when developing and distributing vaccines against the deadly virus.

Potential manufacturers have committed to ensuring vaccines are sold at affordable prices, a WHO official added.

Ebola could kill more than 90,000 people in Liberia by December if there is not a significant increase in international action, a report suggests.

A team of US scientists estimated there could be 90,122 deaths in the country's most populated county Montserrado by December 15.

They added that some 170,996 people may have been infected by the virus by then, representing 12% of an overall population of some 1.38 million.

Lead researcher Professor Alison Galvani, from the School of Public Health at Yale University, said: "Our predictions highlight the rapidly closing window of opportunity for controlling the outbreak and averting a catastrophic toll of new Ebola cases and deaths in the coming months.

"Although we might still be within the midst of what will ultimately be viewed as the early phase of the current outbreak, the possibility of averting calamitous repercussions from an initially delayed and insufficient response is quickly eroding."

A two-year-old girl has been confirmed as having the first case of Ebola in Mali.

The country's health minister Ousmane Kone told state television that the girl had recently arrived in the town of Kayes from Guinea.

The girl was admitted at the Fousseyni Daou hospital in Kayes on Wednesday night, where she was tested for Ebola.

"The condition of the girl, according to our services, is improving thanks to her rapid treatment," Mr Kone said.

The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in Mali, the country's health minister has said.

It follows the World Health Organization's comments earlier today that they were "reasonably confident" transmission of Ebola into countries bordering Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia was not widespread.

ITV News Europe Editor James Mates reports from Brussels: