Geneva (AFP) - The World Health Organization on Tuesday
authorised 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.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr.
Margaret Chan on August 8, 2014 in
Geneva.
The declaration by the UN's health agency came after a US
company that makes an experimental serum 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.
The current 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 health
systems are struggling to cope.
An elderly Spanish priest who became infected while helping
patients in Liberia died in a Madrid hospital on Tuesday, 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 representative of the US
government later this week, the Liberian government said.
There is currently no available cure or vaccine for Ebola,
which the WHO has declared a global public health emergency, and the use of
experimental drugs has stoked an ethical debate.
Despite promising results for the ZMapp treatment, made by
private US company Mapp Biopharmaceutical, it is still in an early phase of
development and had only been tested previously on monkeys.
ZMapp is in very short supply, but its use on the Western aid
workers evacuated to the United States last week triggered controversy and
demands that it be made available in Africa.
Mapp said it had sent all its available supplies to West
Africa.
"In responding to the request received this weekend
from a West African nation, the available supply of ZMapp is exhausted,"
it said in a statement.
"Any decision to use ZMapp must be made by the patients'
medical team," it said, adding 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."
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also banned state officials
from travelling abroad for a month and ordered those outside the country to
return home within a week.
Numerous countries have imposed emergency measures,
including flight bans and improved health screenings.
In Sierra Leone, eight Chinese medical workers who treated
patients with Ebola have been placed in quarantine, China's envoy in Freetown
said Monday, but would not be drawn on whether they were displaying symptoms of
the disease.
In addition, 24 nurses, most from the military hospital in
Freetown, have been quarantined, hospital officials said, while a senior
physician had contracted Ebola but was responding well to treatment.
The nation's sole virologist, who was at the forefront of
its battle against the epidemic, died from Ebola last month.
As countries around the world were on alert, Japan said it
was evacuating two dozen staff from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Ivory Coast announced on Monday it was banning all
flights from the three hardest-hit nations and said it had turned back around
100 Liberians trying to flee across the border.
Niger, which also has yet to confirm any cases, has put in
place an "emergency plan" to train health workers and boost checks at
borders, airports and stations.
Togo has also strengthened health screenings.
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