MOSCOW (August 12) RIA Novosti – The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it is ethical to use experimental drugs to treat patients infected with the deadly Ebola virus.
“In the particular circumstances of this outbreak, and provided certain conditions are met, the panel reached consensus that it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects, as potential treatment or prevention,” the statement issued following a meeting of WHO experts in Switzerland Monday, read.
In order to understand the safety and efficacy of these “interventions” the organization urged medical practitioners to “collect and share all data generated, including from treatments provided for ‘compassionate use’” any time experimental medications are used.
Last week two US missionary workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia were treated with an experimental serum known as ZMapp, in the first use of the drug on humans. After the treatment the two showed signs of improvement. Another patient, Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, was slated to receive the experimental treatment this week, but died earlier Tuesday. It is not immediately clear whether the drug was administered to Pajares before his death.
In the face of the most severe Ebola outbreak in history and with no known cure, West Africa has requested the drugs, but drug-maker Mapp Biopharmaceutical, which developed the MZapp antibody serum, said on Monday it had already exhausted its supplies.
Nigeria has been waiting for a response from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to gain access to the experimental serum, while Sierra Leone had been awaiting the WHO panel’s conclusion.
With 1,848 infected and 1,013 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and now Nigeria, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Defyrus and a subsidiary of Reynolds American are working with the US government to quickly increase production, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
In the meantime, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, warns that small doses of the experimental drugs will not help control the outbreak, and people must keep the focus on basic public health and infection-control measures.
“How can a couple of doses control an outbreak with hundreds and hundreds of people?” Anthony Fauci told Bloomberg by phone.
