http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/#!/content/1.2733021
In a development that raises a host of ethical issues, Spain announced it had obtained a scarce U.S.-made experimental Ebola drug to treat a Spanish missionary priest infected with the killer virus.

So far the experimental drug ZMapp has been used to treat two infected Americans and a Spaniard but no Africans for a hemorrhagic disease that has been ravaging West Africa for months and has killed about 50 per cent of those it infects. That news came as medical experts debated the ethical questions surrounding experimental Ebola drugs and vaccines during a teleconference Monday organized by the U.N. health agency.


There is no known cure or licensed treatment for Ebola, which has killed over 960 people in the current outbreak in West Africa. The World Health Organization has called the Ebola outbreak — which emerged in Guinea in March and has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and possibly Nigeria — an international health emergency and urged nations worldwide to battle the disease.

The drug's maker, Mapp Pharmaceutical Inc. of San Diego, says on its website that "very little of the drug is currently available" and that it is co-operating with government agencies to increase production as quickly as possible.

Nigerian officials say they had asked U.S. health authorities about getting the Ebola drug last week.



"It certainly looks bad that only three Westerners have gotten the drug while most of the people with Ebola are African," said Art Caplan, director of bioethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. He said the drugmaker must make its policy for distributing its treatment clear. "I don't think this scarce resource should just be given to whoever is best connected."

Still, Caplan said there might be a reasonable explanation for why only Westerners were given the drug, including the need for a sophisticated medical centre to administer it and monitor the patient carefully since the drug hasn't been tested in humans.

But some Africans said giving the experimental drug only to Westerners was patently unfair.

"There's no reason to try this medicine on sick white people and to ignore blacks," said Marcel Guilavogui, a pharmacist in Conakry, Guinea. "We understand that it's a drug that's being tested for the first time and that could have negative side effects. But we have to try it in blacks too."

wot a shame to d african continent. Where were d africans when d whites were developing? Our leaders ar d dumbest of all particularly in nigeria our educational institutions ar in a messed state. The westerners put in efforts to b where dey ar now but in africa we dnt encourage research there ar no facilities to even cary out research. I jst wish our leaders could nt b greedy nd do wht is right.

I'm not a fan of how Africans and black people in general have conducted their affairs over the ages. This made me sick. I actually wept. No nobility or Humanity in that decision.