Ebola: US agrees to send experimental drug to Liberia

Posted by: b3rrilyn in News Aug 12, 2014

The Ebola drug given to two Americans and a Spanish priest has been sent to a West African country that requested it, and the supply of the medicine is now exhausted, its manufacturer said.

Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., based in San Diego, said it was told by U.S. health officials that the countries, including Nigeria and Liberia, had requested the drug, called ZMapp. The company said it has complied with every request for the drug that was authorized by legal and regulatory authorities. It said it provided the drug at no cost.

�It is our understanding that all patients offered treatment, treated, or expected to be treated were or are highly capable of providing informed consent for the use of an experimental drug not yet evaluated for safety in animals or people,” the company said in a statement.

The additional patients allocated the drug include medical doctors in two West African countries as well as the Americans and the Spanish priest.

Mapp and its partners, Defyrus Inc. and a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., and are working with the U.S. government to quickly increase production, the company said in the statement.

�Additional resources are being brought to bear on scaling up,” the company said. �The emergency use of an experimental medicine is a highly unusual situation.”