WHO Panel Of Medical Experts Agrees It’s Ethical To Provide Experimental Ebola Treatments

Roman Catholic priest Miguel Pajares, who contracted the deadly Ebola virus, being transported from Madrid's Torrejon air base to the Carlos III hospital upon his arrival in Spain on August 7, 2014 (AFP Photo / Spanish Defense Ministry / Inaki Gomez)

WHO panel of medical experts has agreed that it is ethical to provide experimental treatments to patients infected with the deadly virus, AFP reported.

"In the particular circumstances of this outbreak, and provided certain conditions are met, the panel reached consensus that it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects, as potential treatment or prevention," the UN health agency said in a statement.

"Ethical criteria must guide the provision of such interventions. These include transparency about all aspects of care, informed consent, freedom of choice, confidentiality, respect for the person, preservation of dignity and involvement of the community."

The panel, which includes UK experts Professor Peter Smith - of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Professor Jeremy Farrar - director of the Wellcome Trust, added that there was a "moral duty" to evaluate interventions in the "best possible clinical trials under the circumstances".

West Africa is experiencing the most severe and complex outbreak of Ebola in history and if certain conditions are met - such as informed consent - it is ethical to offer "unproven" interventions, the panel of ethicists, medical experts and lay people concluded.

US company, Mapp Bioparmaceutical which produces the treatment said it had sent all its supplies of the drug to West Africa, Reuters reported.

The number of victims from the Ebola outbreak has reached 1,013 after another 52 people succumbed to the virus in the three days to Aug. 9 in three West African countries, the World Health Organization said Monday. The largest number of reported new deaths have occurred in Liberia, where 29 people died, followed by 17 in Sierra Leone and six in Guinea while Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has confirmed 10 cases. A Liberian-American had travelled to Nigeria while under observation and spread the infection.