WHO Little hopes for Ebola drug

WHO: Hope for Ebola drug subdued

15/11/2014

The bad news about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is not abating. After the recent weeks hope to germinate, possibly soon to have a drug against the disease, it was now dampened by the WHO. For some funds further tests are needed and others could not be produced in the required quantities.

Hope for early drug steamed
The Ebola epidemic, which has been rampant in West Africa for months, has already claimed around 5,000 lives. So far, there is neither a vaccine against the infectious disease, nor an approved cure. Patients will only be treated for typical Ebola symptoms. However, hope has risen in recent weeks after it has been reported that Ebola drugs may soon be available. According to the APA news agency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has now dampened the hope of finding an anti-Ebola drug soon.

Only a few promising candidates
As the responsible WHO program leader Martin Friede said in Geneva on Friday, "there are currently only a few promising candidates". Those medicines for which there are so far meaningful data, are "not in the necessary quantities producible". And for most of the funds available, animal experiments are still needed, especially on primates. The WHO has a list "of a total of more than 120 experimental drugs". On Wednesday and Thursday, a committee of scientists from the WHO had discussed possible treatments for Ebola.

Do not generalize treatment successes in the West
According to the experts, "a high standard in hospital care is particularly important". However, this is hardly guaranteed in the Ebola areas in the affected countries in West Africa. As the WHO warned, "this situation also needs to be taken into account in drug testing, so some treatment outcomes with certain drugs in Europe or the US could not be easily generalized". Thus, "the positive course of the disease in Western countries could also have been the result of the good care of the patients or could be attributed to the fact that the patients were well-nourished before being infected".

Three possible remedies are being tested in West Africa
Several press agencies have announced that MSF is launching clinical trials of three possible anti-Ebola drugs in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone next month. As the MSF Ebola Coordinator, Annick Antierens, has said, two different drugs - brincidofovir and favipiravir - and blood and plasma antibody therapy are being tested on recovered patients. First results are expected for next February. Antierens warned: „We must not forget that there is no guarantee of the effectiveness of the three funds.“ (Ad)