Intended for healthcare professionals

News

First Ebola treatment is approved by WHO

BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g5539 (Published 08 September 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g5539
  1. Anne Gulland
  1. 1London

Serum from people who are convalescing from infection with the Ebola virus can be used to treat new patients, the World Health Organization announced last week.

At the end of a two day meeting of around 200 international experts, including regulators, ethicists, virologists, and health workers, WHO approved the use of convalescent serum and whole blood products to treat affected patients in a bid to control the outbreak that has spread through west Africa at an unprecedented rate.1 2 WHO also announced that two promising candidate vaccines, chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine and vesicular stomatitis virus, may be introduced as early as November when safety studies have concluded.

Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director general of WHO, told a press conference that the infrastructure to develop blood products needed to be put in place in the …

View Full Text

Log in

Log in through your institution

Subscribe

* For online subscription