Zmapp
By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
Sierra Leone’s deputy health minister has criticises the use of the experimental drug for Ebola, ZMapp saying it is “a new drug and we cannot draw sound inference on its safety and efficacy having been tested on just three patients”.
Dr Abu Bakarr Fofanah, who was addressing a news conference in Freetown, said: “I would not recommend its use in Sierra Leone and I don’t believe in it”.
He said the new drug was unsafe for human consumption since it had been tested on a handful of Ebola patients and made reference to the meningitis outbreak in Nigeria in 1996 when that country's government had imported a new drug called PFIZER. He said when the drug was administered to the patients, “5% of the affected children died, others became deaf and paralysed”. He added that that situation forced the Nigerian government to court by citizens.
Dr Fofanah said he wouldn’t want to see a similar situation happen in Sierra Leone, urging all citizens to adhere to the preventive measures of the medical doctors “as the situation stands for now”.
He went on to say that failure to impose travel restrictions to and from Guinea and Liberia owing to geopolitical considerations was the main difficulty faced in the containment of the disease.
Other factors he highlighted were the funding gap, poor health infrastructure and the lack of appropriate human resource capacity and logistics.
(C) Politico 26/08/14
