Nigeria Considers Asking For US Experimental Ebola Drug
Nigeria is contemplating asking for a dose of the American experimental Ebola drug to treat the female Nigerian doctor confirmed of being in...
http://www.africaeagle.com/2014/08/nigeria-considers-asking-for-us.html
Nigeria is contemplating asking for a dose of the American experimental Ebola drug to treat the female Nigerian doctor confirmed of being infected.
Jide Idris, Lagos state commissioner for health, giving the hint at a press conference in Ikeja, Tuesday, said eight others are currently in quarantine, suspected of being infected. All are people who came into close contact with Nigeria’s first victim, Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian and American citizen who died in July.
The drug, ZMapp, produced from tobacco plants, was given to two Americans- Kent Brantly, a medical doctor and Nancy Writebol, an aid worker, both infected with the virus in Liberia and now showing significant improvement.
Hope is rising globally over this possible cure for the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, a biotech firm in the US, which developed the drug, has been working with the US National Institute of Health and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military, responsible for weapons of mass destruction, to develop an Ebola treatment for several years.
While the drug had shown promise in primates, with eight monkeys receiving the treatment, there are concerns by medical experts that the human immune system can react differently from primates’, which is why drugs are required to undergo human clinical trials before being approved by government agencies for widespread use.
Of concern is the fact that the drug has not been approved for human use and has not even gone through the clinical trial process, which is standard to prove the safety and efficacy of a medication.
Anthony Fauci, director,US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said scientists have to be careful about assuming this drug will work on other patients, as it appears to have worked in Brantly.
“Having worked with administering antibodies for people for a really long time, that would be distinctly unusual. As we all know in medicine … you have to withhold judgment. Apparently the company is trying to scale up, (but) it’s not easy to scale up to very large number of doses,” Fauci said.
Gregory Harti, World Health Organisation spokesman, cautioned that health authorities cannot start using untested drugs in the middle of an outbreak, for various reasons.
Also, Doctors Without Borders similarly weighed in on the side of caution.
“It is important to keep in mind that a large-scale provision of treatments and vaccines that are in very early stages of development has a series of scientific and ethical implications. As doctors, trying an untested drug on patients is a very difficult choice, since our first priority is to do no harm, and we would not be sure that the experimental treatment would not do more harm than good,” the organisation said in a statement.
This development comes as the World Bank and the African Development Bank pledged up to $260 million towards fighting the deadliest Ebola epidemic ever, which has killed 886 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and one person in Nigeria. The funds will also help the Ebola-hit region cope with the economic impact of the crisis, and improve public health systems throughout West Africa.
The new financing commitment is in response to a call from the three West-African countries most impacted, and the WHO, for immediate assistance to contain the outbreak. According to the World Bank, the money will also help build up the region’s disease surveillance and laboratory networks, to guard against future epidemic outbreaks.
In the meantime, a Nigerian medical team comprising officials of the federal and Lagos State governments, with the backing of WHO, is tracking the contacts of the female Nigerian doctor who has tested positive to EVD.
Experts yesterday confirmed that not all persons infected by the disease would necessarily die; as there are chances that 40 percent of victims detected early may live, depending on how they are managed. Evolving medication could also raise the chances of survival, it is said.
Meanwhile, Idris debunked fears about the mode Ebola transmits.
“Once a person is infected with Ebola, the disease is transmissible through direct contact with broken skin, mucous membranes and secretions of an infected person, or through direct contact with materials and surfaces that have been contaminated by the infected person.
“This is a call for vigilance, as human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill (fever being a key sign) from Ebola virus through body fluids such as blood, urine, stool, saliva, breast milk and semen,” he explained
Idris said the committee set up by federal and Lagos State governments was taking necessary perceptional measures to stop the spread of the disease and that the contacts of the medical doctor are being traced for close examination.
For effectiveness in handling this emergency case, the commissioner said the committee had been divided into five units including contact tracing, case management, point of entry unit, publicity and data management unit.
The contact tracing is saddled with the responsibility of tracing contacts of infected person; case management unit has the role of managing established cases, while the point of entry manned by Customs and Immigration personnel is charged with the examination of persons entering Nigeria from the various borders.
The commissioner who called for the maximum cooperation of the citizens with the government in dealing the disease, said suspected cases should be referred to the government through the helpline: 0800 Ebola (0800326524357) and on website: www.ebolaalert.org and on Facebook: fb.com/ebolaalert and on Twitter: @ebolaalert
Source: Business Day
Jide Idris, Lagos state commissioner for health, giving the hint at a press conference in Ikeja, Tuesday, said eight others are currently in quarantine, suspected of being infected. All are people who came into close contact with Nigeria’s first victim, Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian and American citizen who died in July.
The drug, ZMapp, produced from tobacco plants, was given to two Americans- Kent Brantly, a medical doctor and Nancy Writebol, an aid worker, both infected with the virus in Liberia and now showing significant improvement.
Hope is rising globally over this possible cure for the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, a biotech firm in the US, which developed the drug, has been working with the US National Institute of Health and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military, responsible for weapons of mass destruction, to develop an Ebola treatment for several years.
While the drug had shown promise in primates, with eight monkeys receiving the treatment, there are concerns by medical experts that the human immune system can react differently from primates’, which is why drugs are required to undergo human clinical trials before being approved by government agencies for widespread use.
Of concern is the fact that the drug has not been approved for human use and has not even gone through the clinical trial process, which is standard to prove the safety and efficacy of a medication.
Anthony Fauci, director,US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said scientists have to be careful about assuming this drug will work on other patients, as it appears to have worked in Brantly.
“Having worked with administering antibodies for people for a really long time, that would be distinctly unusual. As we all know in medicine … you have to withhold judgment. Apparently the company is trying to scale up, (but) it’s not easy to scale up to very large number of doses,” Fauci said.
Gregory Harti, World Health Organisation spokesman, cautioned that health authorities cannot start using untested drugs in the middle of an outbreak, for various reasons.
Also, Doctors Without Borders similarly weighed in on the side of caution.
“It is important to keep in mind that a large-scale provision of treatments and vaccines that are in very early stages of development has a series of scientific and ethical implications. As doctors, trying an untested drug on patients is a very difficult choice, since our first priority is to do no harm, and we would not be sure that the experimental treatment would not do more harm than good,” the organisation said in a statement.
This development comes as the World Bank and the African Development Bank pledged up to $260 million towards fighting the deadliest Ebola epidemic ever, which has killed 886 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and one person in Nigeria. The funds will also help the Ebola-hit region cope with the economic impact of the crisis, and improve public health systems throughout West Africa.
The new financing commitment is in response to a call from the three West-African countries most impacted, and the WHO, for immediate assistance to contain the outbreak. According to the World Bank, the money will also help build up the region’s disease surveillance and laboratory networks, to guard against future epidemic outbreaks.
In the meantime, a Nigerian medical team comprising officials of the federal and Lagos State governments, with the backing of WHO, is tracking the contacts of the female Nigerian doctor who has tested positive to EVD.
Experts yesterday confirmed that not all persons infected by the disease would necessarily die; as there are chances that 40 percent of victims detected early may live, depending on how they are managed. Evolving medication could also raise the chances of survival, it is said.
Meanwhile, Idris debunked fears about the mode Ebola transmits.
“Once a person is infected with Ebola, the disease is transmissible through direct contact with broken skin, mucous membranes and secretions of an infected person, or through direct contact with materials and surfaces that have been contaminated by the infected person.
“This is a call for vigilance, as human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill (fever being a key sign) from Ebola virus through body fluids such as blood, urine, stool, saliva, breast milk and semen,” he explained
Idris said the committee set up by federal and Lagos State governments was taking necessary perceptional measures to stop the spread of the disease and that the contacts of the medical doctor are being traced for close examination.
For effectiveness in handling this emergency case, the commissioner said the committee had been divided into five units including contact tracing, case management, point of entry unit, publicity and data management unit.
The contact tracing is saddled with the responsibility of tracing contacts of infected person; case management unit has the role of managing established cases, while the point of entry manned by Customs and Immigration personnel is charged with the examination of persons entering Nigeria from the various borders.
The commissioner who called for the maximum cooperation of the citizens with the government in dealing the disease, said suspected cases should be referred to the government through the helpline: 0800 Ebola (0800326524357) and on website: www.ebolaalert.org and on Facebook: fb.com/ebolaalert and on Twitter: @ebolaalert
Source: Business Day
