ETHICAL EXPERIMENT:The UN health body said using untested drugs to try and stop an outbreak called the worst ever was an acceptable health risk
AFP, GENEVA, Switzerland
Players of the "L’Etoile de Guinee" football team poses with a sign reading "Stop to the ebola epidemic" prior to a football tournament gathering youth from Guinea near the Koumassi sports center in Abidjan on August 10, 2014.
Photo: AFP
The WHO yesterday authorized the use of experimental drugs in the
fight against Ebola as the death toll topped 1,000 and a Spanish priest
became the first European to succumb to the virus in the latest
outbreak.
The declaration by the UN health agency came after a US firm that makes an experimental serum to treat the deadly virus said it had sent all its available supplies to hard-hit West Africa.
“In the particular circumstances of this outbreak and provided certain conditions are met ... it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects,” the WHO said in a statement following a meeting of medical experts in Geneva, Switzerland.
The outbreak — described as the worst since Ebola was first discovered four decades ago — has now killed 1,013 people, the WHO said. Cases have so far been limited to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Nigeria, all in West Africa, where ill-equipped and fragile healthcare systems are struggling to cope.
An elderly Spanish priest who became infected while helping patients in Liberia died in a Madrid hospital yesterday, just five days after being evacuated.
Monrovia said it had requested samples of an experimental drug, ZMapp, that has shown some positive effects on two US aid workers, but failed to save the Spanish priest. Supplies would be brought in by a US government representative later this week, the Liberian government said.
There is no available cure or vaccine for the disease, which the WHO has declared a global public health emergency.
Despite promising results for the ZMapp treatment made by private US company Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the drug is still in an early phase of development and has only been tested on monkeys.
ZMapp is in very short supply, but its use on Western workers evacuated to the US triggered controversy and demands that it be made available in Africa.
Mapp said in a statement: “In responding to the request received this weekend from a West African nation, the available supply of ZMapp is exhausted,” and that the drug was “provided at no cost in all cases.”
The company did not reveal which nation received the doses, or how many were sent, but the Liberian presidency said: “The White House and the United States Food and Drug Administration have approved the request for sample doses of experimental serum to treat Liberian doctors who are currently infected with the deadly Ebola virus disease.”
Panic is stalking the impoverished countries ravaged by the disease in West Africa, where drastic containment measures are causing transport chaos, price hikes and food shortages, as well as stoking fears that people could die of hunger.
In Liberia — where the virus has claimed more than 300 lives — a third province was placed under quarantine on Monday.
In Sierra Leone, eight Chinese medical workers have been placed in quarantine, China’s envoy in Freetown said on Monday.
The declaration by the UN health agency came after a US firm that makes an experimental serum to treat the deadly virus said it had sent all its available supplies to hard-hit West Africa.
“In the particular circumstances of this outbreak and provided certain conditions are met ... it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects,” the WHO said in a statement following a meeting of medical experts in Geneva, Switzerland.
The outbreak — described as the worst since Ebola was first discovered four decades ago — has now killed 1,013 people, the WHO said. Cases have so far been limited to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Nigeria, all in West Africa, where ill-equipped and fragile healthcare systems are struggling to cope.
An elderly Spanish priest who became infected while helping patients in Liberia died in a Madrid hospital yesterday, just five days after being evacuated.
Monrovia said it had requested samples of an experimental drug, ZMapp, that has shown some positive effects on two US aid workers, but failed to save the Spanish priest. Supplies would be brought in by a US government representative later this week, the Liberian government said.
There is no available cure or vaccine for the disease, which the WHO has declared a global public health emergency.
Despite promising results for the ZMapp treatment made by private US company Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the drug is still in an early phase of development and has only been tested on monkeys.
ZMapp is in very short supply, but its use on Western workers evacuated to the US triggered controversy and demands that it be made available in Africa.
Mapp said in a statement: “In responding to the request received this weekend from a West African nation, the available supply of ZMapp is exhausted,” and that the drug was “provided at no cost in all cases.”
The company did not reveal which nation received the doses, or how many were sent, but the Liberian presidency said: “The White House and the United States Food and Drug Administration have approved the request for sample doses of experimental serum to treat Liberian doctors who are currently infected with the deadly Ebola virus disease.”
Panic is stalking the impoverished countries ravaged by the disease in West Africa, where drastic containment measures are causing transport chaos, price hikes and food shortages, as well as stoking fears that people could die of hunger.
In Liberia — where the virus has claimed more than 300 lives — a third province was placed under quarantine on Monday.
In Sierra Leone, eight Chinese medical workers have been placed in quarantine, China’s envoy in Freetown said on Monday.
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Source;Taipei Times
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