Liberian Doctors Will Be First Africans to Get Experimental Ebola Drug

In this photo taken Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014, health worker wearing protective clothing and equipment, out of fear for the deadly Ebola virus, sit at a desk at the Kenema Government Hospital situated in the Eastern Province in Kenema, 300 kilometers, (186 miles) from the capital city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Over the decades, Ebola cases have been confirmed in 10 African countries, including Congo where the disease was first reported in 1976. But until this year, Ebola had never come to West Africa. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia announced Monday that it would soon receive doses of an experimental Ebola drug and give it to two sick doctors, making them the first Africans to receive some of the scarce treatment in a spiraling outbreak.

The U.S. government confirmed that it had put Liberian officials in touch with the maker of ZMapp, and referred additional questions to Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. In a statement, the California-based company said that in responding to a request from an unidentified West African country, it had run out of its supply of the treatment.

The news comes as anger is growing over the fact that the only people to receive the experimental treatment so far have been Westerners: two Americans and a Spaniard, all of whom were evacuated to their home countries from Liberia.

Late Monday, the World Health Organization said 1,013 people had died in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Authorities have recorded 1,848 suspected, probable or confirmed cases of the disease, the U.N. health agency said. The updated WHO tally includes figures from Aug. 7-9 when 52 more people died and 69 more were infected.

There is no Ebola vaccine or treatment available, but there are several in development besides ZMapp. That treatment is so new that it hasn't been tested for safety or effectiveness in humans. And the company has said it would take months to produce even modest quantities.

It was unclear how much of the treatment would be sent to Liberia.

"The U.S. Government assisted in connecting the Government of Liberia with the manufacturer," the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. "Since the drug was shipped for use outside the U.S., appropriate export procedures had to be followed."

The Liberian statement, posted on the presidency's website, said it was also receiving an experimental treatment from the World Health Organization. It was unclear if this was also referring to ZMapp or another treatment.

In the past few weeks, the experimental drug was given to two American aid workers diagnosed with the disease while working at a hospital that treated Ebola patients. On Monday, officials in Spain disclosed that the treatment was also given to a Spanish missionary priest who fell ill while working in Liberia.

The Americans are said to be improving, but there's no way to know whether the drug helped, or if they are getting better on their own, as others have. Around 40 percent of those infected with Ebola are surviving the current outbreak.

But some called for the untested drug to be given to Africans, too. The outbreak was first identified in March in Guinea, but it likely started months earlier. It has since spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone, and possibly to Nigeria.

"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 could have negative side effects. But we have to try it in blacks too."

Some are using Twitter to demand that the drug be made available.

"We can't afford to be passive while many more die," said Aisha Dabo, a Senegalese-Gambian journalist who was tweeting using the hashtag "GiveUsTheSerum"on Monday. "That's why we raise our voice for the world to hear us."

The ethical dilemmas involved prompted the U.N. health agency to consult Monday with ethicists, infectious disease experts, patient representatives and the Doctors Without Borders group. Most participants in the closed teleconference were from developed countries, but Uganda and Senegal were represented. The World Health Organization said it would discuss the results of the meeting at a press conference on Tuesday.

Companies can provide experimental drugs on a "compassionate use" basis, usually after they have been fully tested in humans. The Food and Drug Administration approves such uses in the U.S., but has no authority overseas. Ultimately, the companies alone decide whether or not to share their products.

Spain's Health Ministry said it obtained ZMapp this weekend with company permission to treat Miguel Pajares, a 75-year-old priest evacuated from Liberia and placed in isolation Thursday at Madrid's Carlos III Hospital.

"The medicine was imported from Geneva where there was one dose available in the context of an accord between the laboratory that developed the medicine, WHO and (Doctors Without Borders)," the ministry said, invoking a Spanish law permitting unauthorized medication for patients with life-threatening illnesses.

Spanish authorities refused to comment beyond the ministry's statement, but Geneva University Hospital told The Associated Press it was involved in getting the drug to Madrid.

The evacuated American aid workers, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, have been improving at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. They got the treatment after their international relief group Samaritan's Purse asked Kentucky BioProcessing, which produces it for Mapp Biopharmaceutical.

The treatment is aimed at boosting the immune system's efforts to fight off Ebola. It is made from antibodies grown inside tobacco plants

A Sierra Leone official said they had not asked for the drug, but the other governments said they want any treatment that might help patients recover, despite the risks of unproven medicines.

"The alternative for not testing this is death, a certain death," Liberia's information minister, Lewis Brown, told The AP in an interview before the announcement.

Guinea said Monday it wants some, too.

"Guinean authorities would naturally be interested in having this medicine," said Alhoussein Makanera Kake, spokesman for the government committee fighting Ebola.

Ebola is spread through direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of a sick person. It begins with symptoms including fever and sore throat and can escalate to vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding.

In other Ebola developments Monday:

— An African nun who worked with the infected Spanish priest died from Ebola in Liberia, their Catholic aid group said.

— A nurse who treated Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American who flew into Nigeria and died last month, also died of Ebola, Nigerian health authorities said, raising the number of locally confirmed Ebola cases to 10. Nigeria is monitoring 177 contacts of Sawyer to contain the outbreak. The WHO has yet to confirm any Ebola cases in Nigeria.

— Ivory Coast, which shares borders with Liberia and Guinea, banned direct flights from the infected countries and said it would increase health inspections and enforcement of its borders, but stopped short of closing them entirely.

— George Weah, a Liberian former FIFA world player of the year, joined awareness efforts by recording a song titled "Ebola is real," with proceeds going to the Liberian Health Ministry.

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Cheng reported from London. AP writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington, Julie Pace in Chilmark, Massachusetts, Ciaran Giles in Madrid; Boubacar Diallo in Gonakry, Guinea; Marc-Andre Boisvert in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and Bashir Adigun from Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.