The company said it had exhausted its supplies of ZMapp by making it available to Liberia “at no cost in all cases”. It has been tested on monkeys but not evaluated for safety in humans.
ZMapp has already been prescribed for two American aid workers. Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who were flown home from Liberia, have been improving at a hospital in Atlanta. However, there is no way of knowing whether the drug is helping or if they are getting better on their own.
The World Health Organisation says there have been 1,848 suspected cases of Ebola in west Africa, with 1,013 dead. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria —which has now had 10 cases, including two deaths — have all been affected.
Today the WHO announced a panel of ethical experts had given approval for experimental drugs to be offered more widely to Ebola victims. There is no known cure and this outbreak has a mortality rate of about 60 per cent.
