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WHO Approves Experimental Ebola Drugs
Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele (right), addressing participants at the Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja, recently. With him are Deputy Governor, Finance System Stability, Dr Kingsley Moghalu (middle) and Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Mr Adebayo Adelabu. Photo: NAN
The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday authorised the use of experimental drugs to fight Ebola as the death toll topped 1,000 and a Spanish priest became the first European to succumb to the latest outbreak.
The declaration by the United Nations’ health agency came after a United States company that makes an experimental serum called ZMapp said it had sent all its available supplies to hard-hit countries in West Africa.
“In the special circumstances of this Ebola outbreak it is ethical to offer unregistered interventions as potential treatments or prevention,” WHO Assistant Director General, Marie-Paule Kieny told reporters in Geneva, following a meeting of medical experts on the issue.
The epidemic, described as the worst since Ebola was first discovered four decades ago, has killed 1,013 people since early this year, the WHO said.
Cases have been limited to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which account for the bulk of victims, and Nigeria, where two people have died.
Elderly Spanish priest, Miguel Pajares, who became infected while helping patients in Liberia, died in a Madrid hospital yesterday, five days after being evacuated.
He had been treated with ZMapp, which failed to save him but has shown positive effects on two US aid workers also infected in Liberia.
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 a fierce ethical debate.
Despite promising results for the ZMapp treatment, made by private US company, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, it had only been tested previously on monkeys.
ZMapp is also in very short supply but the company said it had sent all available doses to West Africa free of charge after an outcry over its use on foreign aid workers.
“Any decision to use ZMapp must be made by the patients’ medical team,” it said, without revealing which nation received the doses, or how many were sent.
Kieny said WHO had been told three doses were sent to Liberia.
While the ZMapp stock has been exhausted for now, Kieny stressed there were other “potential therapies and vaccines … considered very serious alternatives.”
She said the WHO would convene a new meeting of experts at the end of August to discuss their use.
Two possible vaccines were moving rapidly towards clinical trials, she said, voicing optimism that one could be made widely available by year-end, maybe as early as November.
Kieny described the lack of vaccines and treatments for Ebola as “a market failure,” pointing out that plenty of drugs had been developed “to a point”, but companies had not footed the bill for the more expensive clinical trial process since the virus was “typically a disease of poor people in poor countries where there is no market.”
“This is an opportunity to right a wrong of history,” she said.
The use of unauthorised drugs that had proven safe and effective in monkeys could be a “potent asset” in the fight against Ebola, she said.
But strict criteria applied, including the need for full transparency, and for informed consent from patients — or their families if they are unconscious.
Kieny also stressed the “moral obligation” to collect and share all data generated from their use to help speed up the production of authorised drugs.
Panic has gripped the impoverished West African countries ravaged by the disease, with drastic containment measures causing transport chaos, price hikes and food shortages, and stoking fears that people could die of hunger.
Numerous countries around the globe have imposed emergency measures, including flight bans and improved health screenings.
In Liberia a third province was placed under quarantine on Monday, and state officials were banned from travelling abroad for a month, while those outside the country were ordered home.
Sierra Leonean President, Ernest Bai Koroma, expressed his “utter dismay” at the “slow pace” of the international community in responding to the outbreak.
Eight Chinese medical workers who treated patients with Ebola have been placed in quarantine in Sierra Leone, but Beijing has not said whether they were displaying symptoms of the disease.
In addition, 24 nurses have been quarantined, health officials said, while a 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.
Countries around the world were on alert, with Japan saying it was evacuating two dozen staff from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In Senegal, a newspaper editor was detained by police for spreading “false information” after his paper claimed there were five Ebola cases in the country, which authorities have denied.
However, some private hospitals in Lagos yesterday rejected treating patients who visited them with symptoms of fever as part of measures they were taking to prevent contracting the Ebola Virus Disease.
A visit to some hospitals in Lagos metropolis showed that nurses and other health workers, including cleaners were seen wearing face mask and gloves while attending to patients.
Also, some of the health facilities were compelling patients to wash their hands and apply sanitisers before proceeding into their building.
Some of the hospitals visited included Jaycee Hospital, Prime Hospital, Lifeline Children’s Hospital and Providence Hospital.
A Neurologist at Jaycee Hospital, Dr. Francis Ojini, said that his hospital did not attend to patients who had with fever.
Ojini said that it became necessary as health workers were at greater risk of contracting the virus.
“Health workers are the first to be in contact with patients who visited the hospital and so it is necessary we take precautions.
“For now, any illness that has to do with fever is not being attended to as we are trying to be careful because of the new development of the Ebola disease.
“If there is need, we refer patients we feel we cannot treat. We hope we are able to curtail the spread in order to save lives,” he said.
A nurse at the same hospital, who pleaded anonymity, said that nurses wore face mask and gloves when any patients visited the facility.
She said: “We are protecting ourselves from contracting a deadly disease that has no drug or vaccine at the moment.”
Also speaking, the Medical Director, Lifeline Children’s Hospital, Dr. Uche Owowo, said that his hospital was making hand sanitisers available for patients.
Owowo urged the Federal Government and other civil organisations to intensify awareness programmes to educate the masses about the disease.
“Many people still need to know more about the disease, how it can be contracted and how to prevent being infected.
“I believe educating people and making the facilities available and accessible will encourage people to be cautious,” he said.
Efforts to speak with the medical directors and other health workers of Prime Hospital and Providence Hospital proved abortive as they refused to comment.
Meanwhile, the Africa Grassroots Empowerment Organisation (AGEO), has offered the services of its members who are medical personnel to assist the government in the management of Ebola virus outbreak in the country.
The President of the group, Gomene Namene, said his association has 150 medical personnel who are willing to work with the government to contain the spread of the disease, adding that the specialization of the volunteers cuts across the spectrum of medicine.
Namene, who said this at a media briefing in Abuja yesterday, stated that the Ebola virus appeared to be spreading globally, adding that it is necessary to work with all volunteers and medical personnel to combat the disease.
According to him, the group would soon commence its street campaign to sensitize the people on how to stay safe alive and protect themselves from harm.
He said, “We are mindful of the deadly Ebola disease that has broken out in some African countries; as we embark on the sensitization campaigns, our 150-member team of medical experts will be educating the populace on the best ways to live free and safe from Ebola disease.
“We are therefore calling on government to partner with our organisation in order to achieve this.
“Namene said it was interested in working to keep the nation united, and called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to put an end to what it called electoral corruption in the country”.
He challenged Nigerians to learn to conduct themselves peacefully during elections, noting that everyone must do everything within the confines of the law to ensure transparent and free electoral process.
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