Russia plans to start testing an Ebola virus vaccine on primates in March 2015, Russian public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor Chief Anna Popova said on Tuesday.

      “We hope that we will start testing our vaccine on primates by the beginning of spring,” Popova told reporters at a press conference on Ebola threats. She also promised that the next stage after that would be clinical trials.

      There is still no vaccine to defeat the virus, but several countries are currently working on its creation, Russia among them. The country has already spent about $60 million on the fight against Ebola.

      “We are working on it, our work is productive, but I must say that as at today there is no effective vaccine from Ebola, but we hope that there will be a breakthrough,” Popova said. “Even if it will be effective for primates, it does not prove that if will be as effective and safe for humans,” she explained.

      Russia will also send humanitarian aid to Ebola-hit Guinea in spring 2015, Russian health care watchdog Rospotrebnadzor chief said.

      Ebola is a deadly disease that spreads fast through direct contact with the bodily fluids or clothes of an infected person. The virus began its spreading in West Africa in the end of 2013, mostly affecting Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Over 8,400 people have been killed by the virus with more than 21,000 cases of the disease registered.