The Ebola drug given to two Americans and a Spanish priest has been sent to a West African country that requested it, and the supply of the medicine is now exhausted, its manufacturer said.
Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., based in San Diego, said it was told by U.S. health officials that the countries, including Nigeria and Liberia, had requested the drug, called ZMapp. The company said it has complied with every request for the drug that was authorized by legal and regulatory authorities. It said it provided the drug at no cost.
“It is our understanding that all patients offered treatment, treated, or expected to be treated were or are highly capable of providing informed consent for the use of an experimental drug not yet evaluated for safety in animals or people,” the company said in a statement.
The additional patients allocated the drug include medical doctors in two West African countries as well as the Americans and the Spanish priest.
The decision comes as a panel of ethicists convened today by the World Health Organization weighs the use of experimental drugs that have shown early promise against a disease that’s killed almost 1,000 people this year. The panel is considering whether the drugs, which haven’t been widely tested for safety, should be used in an outbreak where 40 percent of infected people survive and, if so, who should get them from what may be a limited supply.
