SWITZERLAND: Swissmedic, the agency that regulates new drugs, announced its approval yesterday for a clinical trial with an experimental Ebola vaccine at the Lausanne University Hospital.

The trial will be conducted on 120 volunteer participants with support from the World Health Organisation.

Swissmedic said that the trial continues a series begun in the US, Britain and Mali, using a vaccine based on a genetically modified chimpanzee adenovirus.

AFRICA UNION: UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon urged African Union (AU) member states yesterday not to impose Ebola-related travel restrictions or close their borders.

He told an Addis Ababa conference that transmission of the virus continues to outpace the international community’s response.

AU chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said that AU member states have already pledged to send more than 2,000 healthcare workers to affected countries in west Africa.

TURKEY: Eighteen coalminers are missing believed trapped underground in the southern town of Ermenek, in Karaman province, after a pit shaft collapsed yesterday.

Provincial Governor Murat Koca said that flooding inside the mine shaft might have caused the collapse.

Ministers for energy and transportation immediately left the capital Ankara to inspect the rescue operation.

AFGHANISTAN: Two police officers were shot dead yesterday when suspected Taliban gunmen attacked a checkpoint in the western city of Heart.

Seven civilians, including three women, were also wounded when two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the checkpoint.