Global Health Charity First to Test Ebola Drugs in West Africa

Sept. 25, 2014

Wellcome Trust global health charity will test experimental ebola drugs in affected West African states for the first time in a bid to fast-track trials.

Compounds from Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Sarepta and Tekmira will be tested. In August, two Americans who were infected with Ebola while working at a missionary clinic outside Liberia’s capital were the first to receive Mapp Biopharmaceutical’s experimental therapy ZMapp. 

Utilizing a $5.25M grant, Wellcome Trust will follow WHO recommendations on which products should be tested in West Africa first, while scientists will start working with researchers and doctors in some of the affected countries to assess potentially suitable sites and set up the infrastructure, staffing and systems for the clinical trials.

In August, when the only three non-Africans known to have contracted Ebola were given some of the first, very limited doses of ZMapp, it opened the door to ethical debate in the media, including everything from op-eds to the use of the Twitter hashtag, #‎GiveUsTheSerum‬.

Read the Huffington Post article