Experimental Ebola drugs should be tried in Africa, disease expert says

By Kate Kelland LONDON(Reuters) - People at high risk of dying in West Africa's Ebola outbreak should be offered experimental medicines to see if they work, despite the drugs being not fully tested, the head of an influential global health charity said. Jeremy Farrar, a professor of tropical medicine and director of The Wellcome Trust charity, said Ebola's spread in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia is "out of control" and global health authorities should rethink the approach to potential treatments. West Africa is battling its deadliest outbreak of Ebola, with 467 people killed so far by a disease that causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea, and can kill between 50 and 90 percent of those it infects. Farrar pointed to several experimental drugs and vaccines in development as potential treatments or preventative measures against Ebola, and questioned why they were not being tested in a situation where people at high risk might benefit.



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