Its really frustrating. The US has an experimental drug and they have an opportunity to test it.
Well I guess when the mortality rate is this high it really could just use a field trial
Yes I am saying human experimentation of new untested drugs on individuals might be the solution for once.
Anyways interesting enough there are two potential candidates for the job not just one
But it does raise the question who gets it first couple news articles
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Anti-Ebola drugs not ready for use in African outbreak
Drug tried on two infected Americans has not been tested for safety and efficacy and ‘there are virtually no doses available,’ CDC says.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/08/07/antiebola_drugs_not_ready_for_use_in_african_outbreak.htmlMONROVIA, LIBERIA—Africans seeking a drug to help contain the Ebola virus will have to wait months before a potentially life-saving experimental treatment used on two infected Americans is produced even in small amounts, officials said.
There are no guarantees that the medication known as ZMapp, from San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., would help curb the spread of the dreaded disease, which starts with a fever and body aches and sometimes progresses to serious bleeding. Supplies of the drug are limited. It has never been tested for safety or effectiveness in humans.
The health minister of Nigeria, one of the four countries where Ebola has broken out, told a news conference in his country that he had asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about access to the drug. A CDC spokesman said Wednesday “there are virtually no doses available.”
Testing an unproven drug on a large population carries risks. Earlier this week, the CDC director emphasized that it’s impossible to know whether ZMapp helped the sick American aid workers.
“Until we do a study, we don’t know if it helps, if it hurts or if it doesn’t make any difference,” Tom Frieden told a health symposium in Kentucky.
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In Ebola Outbreak, Who Should Get Experimental Drug?
Some have said it is wrong that with hundreds of Africans dying from the outbreak of Ebola, extremely scarce supplies of an experimental drug went to two white American aid workers.
But what if the first doses of the drug — which had never been used in people and had not even finished the typical animal safety testing — had been given to African patients instead?
“It would have been the front-page screaming headline: Africans used as guinea pigs for American drug company’s medicine,” said Dr. Salim S. Abdool Karim, director of Caprisa, an AIDS research center in South Africa.
A history of controversy about drug testing in Africa is just one of the complexities facing public health authorities as they wrestle with whether and how to bring that drug and possibly other experimental ones to the countries afflicted with Ebola. Who should get such a scarce supply of medicine? Health workers? Children? The newly infected who are not yet as sick?
Other experimental medicines might be available, but also probably in small amounts, like one from Tekmira Pharmaceuticals that has so far been tested only in healthy volunteers. Tekmira said Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration had determined the drug was safe enough to be tried in infected patients.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/ebola-drug-company-tekmira-2014-8Might be worth a share purchase
DRUG FIRM TEKMIRA SAYS FDA MAY ALLOW USE OF EBOLA DRUG ON PATIENTS
Individuals infected with the Ebola virus might be able to get access to TKM-Ebola, a drug that's been held up in Phase I clinical trials by the FDA.
Shares of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, the company behind the drug, were halted at around 4:00 p.m. ET.
Here's what management is said in its 4:45 p.m. ET press release: "[Tekmira] today announced that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has verbally confirmed they have modified the full clinical hold placed on the TKM-Ebola Investigational New Drug Application (IND) to a partial clinical hold. This action enables the potential use of TKM-Ebola in individuals infected with Ebola virus."
