U.S. under pressure to give potentially life-saving medication the green light as experts warn of global pandemic

Friday, August 1, 2014

Health campaigners are today calling for U.S. authorities to speed up their approval of a new drug hoped to be the first cure for the deadly Ebola virus.

There is currently no cure or vaccine for the disease, which has claimed the lives of 672 people in West Africa, since February.

The head of global charity The Wellcome Trust earlier this month called for experimental drugs to be offered to those diagnosed with the virulent illness in West Africa.

Despite the drugs not being fully tested Jeremy Farrar, professor of tropical medicine and director of the trust, said Ebola’s spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is ’out of control’.

Source: The Daily Mail (link opens in a new window)

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Education, Health Care
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infectious diseases, public health, research