Liberian woman dies of ebola, even as vaccine success reported

MONROVIA, Liberia (WPVI) -- Authorities in Liberia are reporting a new death to the Ebola virus.

But it comes amid promising news on a vaccine.

Officials say the woman died in a hospital in Monrovia, and lived in the county including the Liberian capital.

And they believe she had connections to 5 cases reported over the past 2 weeks.

However, that county is adjacent to the one where those previous cases were, and though officials think they have contained the virus, critics aren't sure.

Liberia had been free of Ebola cases for 7 weeks.

Doctors don't know how the initial patient in the new cluster of cases contracted Ebola.

In the meantime, a research team at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston says its experiemental inhaled vaccine has been effective in monkeys.

In tests, no monkeys died or became seriously ill, even when they were exposed to Ebola levels 1,000 times what would normally be deadly.

Safety trials with a small number of *people are starting.

An inhaled vaccine would be easier to administer to large numbers of people than an injectable vaccine.