This is just my personal opinion; i think infected Africans should be given the same choice as the two Americans: to try an experimental drug, even one that has unknown risks.

The African countries where the current outbreaks of Ebola are occurring should have the same opportunity. African governments should be allowed to make informed decisions about whether or not to use these products, for example to protect and treat healthcare workers who run especially high risks of infection.

What do you guys think?

Why don't they try and be creative.
Then do shakara with their own sample cure.

Truth be told Nigeria has an alternative in NIPRD (Institute of pharmceutical research) an extract exists with retroviral activity; but how far the development has gone, I cannot tell.

For me i think the safest bet here is for various African government to provide adequate facility and sanitary equipment necessary to prevent spread. Making containment more effective, as it would be in developed countries, it is probably a safer strategy than the widespread use of untested drugs. My 2cents.

What should happen if a massive viral outbreak appears out of nowhere and the only possible treatment is an untested drug? And who should receive it? The two American missionaries who contracted the almost-always-fatal virus in West Africa were given access to an experimental drug cocktail called ZMapp. It consists of immune-boosting monoclonal antibodies that were extracted from mice exposed to bits of Ebola DNA. Now in isolation at an Atlanta hospital, they appear to be doing well.

It’s an opportunity the 900 Africans who’ve died so far never had. Is there a case to suspend ethical norms if lives might be saved by deploying an experimental drug?

The reasons for different treatment are partly about logistics, partly about economics and, partly about a lack of any standard policy for giving out untested drugs in emergencies. Before this outbreak, ZMapp had only been tested on monkeys. Mapp, the tiny, San Diego based pharmaceutical company that makes the drug stated two years ago: “When administered one hour after infection [with Ebola], all animals survived…Two-thirds of the animals were protected even when the treatment, known as Zmapp, was administered 48 hours after infection.”

But privileged humans were always going to be the first ones to try it. ZMapp requires a lot of refrigeration and careful handling, plus close monitoring by experienced doctors and scientists—better to try it at a big urban hospital than in rural West Africa, where no such infrastructure exists.

And because of the drug’s experimental nature, it’s unclear that it should go to anyone else. Even if the drug is cooled correctly, success in a few monkeys (less than 20) tells us little about what will happen in a lot of humans who’d had the infection for more than two days. No one knows how much drug to give, how often, what other pre-existing medical conditions might influence its efficacy or even what route is best, be it IV, pill, syrup, or even surgically right into the liver. With an untested drug, there is always a chance you will kill the first human subject who might otherwise have lived. And the two Americans who got it in Africa had been infected for more than a week, making its efficacy completely unknown. Still, because they are a small group in such a carefully controlled setting, they are better candidates for the drug than others might be.

But it’s about more than logistics. Drugs based on monoclonal antibodies usually cost a lot—at least tens of thousands of dollars. This is obviously far more than poor people in poor nations can afford to pay; and a tiny company won’t enthusiastically give away its small supply of drug for free. It is likely that if they were going to donate drugs, it would be to people who would command a lot of press attention and, thus, investors and government money for further research—which is to say, not to poor Liberians, Nigerians or Guineans.

The medical missionaries got the experimental drug because the evangelical Christian International Relief organization they work for, Samaritan’s Purse, reached out to the CDC and the NIH to find out if there was any drug to give to them. They were referred to Mapp Pharmaceuticals and evidently struck some kind of deal to get the drug to their employees who were in Africa at the time. (Technically, African health ministries could make a similar request.) The FDA has little oversight over what goes on abroad, and the federal government has no program to consider appeals for use—much less payment—of experimental drugs that have only been tried on animals. Without an organization pushing, no one might have received access to any sort of treatment. The chance of a poor African getting an experimental drug is about the same as Donald Trump contracting Ebola (which is apparently his greatest current fear).

The above post is culled from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/06/why-do-two-white-americans-get-the-ebola-serum-while-hundreds-of-africans-die/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

Vivalavida99: For me i think the safest bet here is for various African government to provide adequate facility and sanitary equipment necessary to prevent spread. Making containment more effective, as it would be in developed countries, it is probably a safer strategy than the widespread use of untested drugs. My 2cents.

I fully endorse this post.

knightsTempler:

I fully endorse this post.

Thanks!

What if the drug end up having us a more lethal strain of the virus? Its not advisable to test an experimental drug on a large population especially when it's a viral vaccine.

Feedmemore: This is just my personal opinion; i think infected Africans should be given the same choice as the two Americans: to try an experimental drug, even one that has unknown risks.

The African countries where the current outbreaks of Ebola are occurring should have the same opportunity. African governments should be allowed to make informed decisions about whether or not to use these products, for example to protect and treat healthcare workers who run especially high risks of infection.

What do you guys think?

I think africans who vote for corrupt governments get exactly what they deserve... nothing. The Americans are being treated by their government, they are under no obligation to ship the drugs to you. Perhaps if you stopped wasting time with things like boko haram, you could have enough time to develop your own drugs.

I think we Africans like to cry victims too much. Ebola first surfaced in Congo few years ago but no African leader could be proactive enough to fund these major researches by western drug companies for a cure. But a foreign company that none of its citizen is affected went ahead to fund a research for a cure to an African epidemic. Isn't that a shame? We are here pointing fingers at the Americans for not helping us while 20 billion DOLLARS is still unaccounted for?that could easily have even funded the cure for many more diseases We surely deserve what we get. America and Spain quickly airlifted their sick citizens , that's what REAL countries do for their own. Our president has a fleet of 18 presidential jets but cannot boast of 1 medical evacuation military planes like those used by these countries. Africans wake the heck up and stop crying foul. Idiots!!