Last December, a viral infection set off the first-known outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. As of August 22, nine months later, 2,473 people have taken ill — 1,350 have died. It’s far and away the biggest epidemic ever of this horrific, hemorrhage-causing disease. And still there is no cure. But a number of therapies appear near. All are still experimental, meaning that until this outbreak, they’ve never been tried on people. But scientists see hope that at least some of these drugs and vaccines might soon be mobilized, bringing the current outbreak to an end.make no mistake, it will take months to test, produce and bring the therapies to clinics. But researchers hold out hope that these products — even if incompletely tested — might help to slow the illness. Margaret Chan is the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), based in Geneva, Switzerland. Two weeks ago, she declared the current outbreak “a public health emergency of international concern.” That’s because it has gone on longer than any earlier Ebola epidemic. It has affected more people. And it still is not under control.
Indeed, health officials and other experts say the situation in West Africa is so bad that putting experimental therapies into use might be well worth the risk. Currently, at least half of all people there who have developed Ebola have died.
Using still-experimental drugs has its downsides. In patients that recover from Ebola, it will be hard to determine how much of their recovery was due to any experimental treatment. And if certain drugs fail to work, this could worsen the despair and distrust that already has kept many infected people from going to clinics and hospitals.
However, if the drugs do work, they might encourage people with symptoms — and friends and family they may have exposed — to come to hospitals. Keeping people under treatment, and quarantined, is the best hope of stopping the spread of this very lethal virus.
What’s more, making experimental drugs available — especially the disease-preventing vaccines — could help recruit more health-care workers to clinics and hospitals. Many more are needed to treat the sick. Yet all doctors, nurses and cleaning crews know their work puts them at high risk of catching the virus.
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| Treatment Centers |