Poorva Chavan
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Written By: Poorva Chavan | Updated : November 15, 2014 1:45 PM IST
To speed the search for a drug to treat the deadly Ebola virus, accelerated clinical trials will be launched in Western Africa, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said while addressing the nation that enough progress with drug had been made to begin the clinical trials, and lift the emergency.Fresh hotspots have emerged in Liberia near the border with Sierra Leone which was also hit hard along with Guinea.
The drugs that will be used in the clinical trial haven't gone through the usual process of study which involves testing on animals and healthy human beings. Clinical trials begin next month in December at three Ebola treatment centres. Clinical trials involve the World Health Organisation and three different research partners along with health officials from affected countries.
The three institutes are 'The French National Institute of Health and Medical Research'(INSERM) will lead one trial using anti-viral drug Favipiravir in Gu ck dou in Guinea, The Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) will lead a trial of convalescent whole blood and plasma therapy at the Donka Ebola centre in Conakry in Guinea.The University of Oxford will lead, on behalf of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC), a Wellcome Trust-funded trial of the anti-viral drug Brincidofovir at a site yet to be determined.
'If we're going to find a treatment, we have to do it now - which is why we have to accelerate these trials,' said Peter Horby, the chief investigator for the trial led by Oxford University. 'This is an unprecedented international partnership which represents hope for patients to finally get a real treatment against a disease that today kills between 50 and 80 per cent of those infected,' said Annick Antierens, who coordinates the investigational partnerships for MSF.
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