Trial Drug for Ebola Crisis

The World Health Organisation began a two-day emergency meeting on

West Africa's Ebola epidemic, with the UN agency deciding whether to

declare it an international crisis.

The meeting was set to rule whether the outbreak constitutes what is

known as a "public health emergency of international concern". The WHO

also announced 108 new Ebola cases recorded from Saturday to Monday,

bringing the total to 1711, with 932 deaths. Nearly all are in the West

African countries afflicted by the outbreak: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra

Leone. The WHO meeting is not expected to made its decision public until Friday.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says clinical trials are to start in September

on an Ebola vaccine that has shown promising results during tests on animals.

"By the middle to end of 2015, we'll be able to have some vaccine - at least to vaccinate health workers - who put themselves at

considerable risk when they take care of these patients".

Some doctors said it would be immoral to deny the experimental drug to African physicians who contract the virus while treating

patients, especially because it was offered to the two Americans, Dr. Kent Brantly and hygienist Nancy Writebol, who contracted Ebola

at a Liberian hospital.

The decision to offer them the experimental treatment — while dozens of African doctors and nurses have perished — has provoked

outrage, feeding into African perceptions of Western insensitivity and arrogance, with a deep sense of mistrust and betrayal still

lingering over the exploitation and abuses of the colonial era.

Three companies, the US government and the Public Health Agency of Canada are behind the experimental drug.

"ZMapp was first identified as a drug candidate in January 2014 and has not yet been evaluated for safety in humans. As such, very

little of the drug is currently available," Mapp Biopharmaceutical said in a statement.

"Mapp and its partners are co-operating with appropriate government agencies to increase production as quickly as possible."

By Adriana Rueda

Source: BBC News

Image: Science Photo Library