WHO meets on experimental Ebola drug use

As the world scrambles to stem the rapid spread of the killer Ebola virus, the World Health Organization hosted a meeting on Monday to discuss the ethics of using experimental drugs.
      
The talks come as countries ravaged by the tropical disease in west Africa were gripped by panic, with drastic containment measures causing transport chaos, price hikes and food shortages, and stoking fears that people could die of hunger.
      
Liberia, where Ebola has already claimed over almost 370 lives, placed a third province, Lofa, under quarantine on Monday after similar measures in Bomba and Grand Cape Mount.        

"From now on, no one will be allowed to go to Lofa, no one will come out of there," President Ellen Johnson Sirfleaf said. "We want to protect areas that have not been yet affected."       

There is currently no available cure or vaccine for Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to man, and with the death toll fast approaching 1,000, the WHO has declared the latest outbreak a global public health emergency.
      
But the use of experimental drugs has opened up an intense ethical debate, and medical experts from around the world joined WHO-hosted discussions on Monday to draft guidelines for using non-authorised medicines in emergencies such as Ebola.
      
Two Americans and a Spanish priest infected with the virus while working with the sick in Africa are being treated with an untested drug called ZMapp, which has reportedly shown promising results.
      
But the drug, made by private US company Mapp Pharmaceuticals, is still in an extremely early phase of development and had only been tested previously on monkeys.
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