Reuters reported: “The use of an experimental drug on two U.S. charity workers with the deadly Ebola virus has prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to consider the implications of making such treatments more widely available.”
The Geneva-based agency, which is hosting a two-day Emergency Committee of experts to decide on the international response to the disease that has killed nearly 1,000 people in West Africa, said it would convene a meeting of medical ethics experts early next week.
“We are in an unusual situation in this outbreak. We have a disease with a high fatality rate without any proven treatment or vaccine,” WHO Assistant Director-General Marie-Paule Kieny said in a statement. “We need to ask the medical ethicists to give us guidance on what the responsible thing to do is.”
Health experts and specialists on viruses and infectious diseases welcomed the WHO’s decision to consider the problem, but warned it would not be easy: “‘Giving unlicensed and untested treatments and vaccines is a very thorny ethical issue,’ said Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at Britain’s University of Nottingham.”
Click here to read the full Reuters article “WHO Consults Ethics Experts On Wider Use of Experimental Ebola Drugs,” by Tom Miles and Kate Kelland.
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Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H., is Clinical Professor, Preventive Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and Adjunct Professor, Baruch College ( C.U.N.Y.), Rutgers School of Public Health, and Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration.
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