WHO mulls over using untested drugs to fight Ebola
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GENEVA (AFP) - Health experts honed in on Friday on a handful of unproven drugs they hope might turn the lethal tide of Ebola, as key figures urged that funds go for frontline crisis care in some of the world's poorest states.
On the second and last day of talks in Geneva, the group led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) discussed fast-tracking two potential vaccines and eight potential therapies, including the drug ZMapp that has been used on a handful of frontline workers.
With no fully tested treatments for Ebola, the WHO has endorsed rushing out potential cures like ZMapp - a call echoed by African doctors battling the epidemic that has taken some 1,900 lives so far. "Everybody keeps asking why isn't this medication made available to our people out there?" Mr Samuel Kargbo, from Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health, told AFP.
The WHO said "extraordinary measures" were in place to accelerate the pace of clinical trials - but admitted that even that would likely not allow "widespread use before the end of 2014".
