L
LequteMan
Guest
Projections published in The New England Journal of Medicine suggest that there will have been nearly 20,000 cases of the deadly #Ebola virus by early November.
WHO scientists reportedly expect number of cases to rise exponentially, raising the possibility that the disease could become endemic [regularly found] in West Africa.
Also, a new analysis of confirmed cases suggests death rates are higher than previously reported at about 70% of all cases.
Dr Dye, co-author of the study, called for "the most forceful implementation of present control measures and for the rapid development and deployment of new drugs and vaccines".
It came as The Wellcome Trust charity announced that experimental drugs would be tested in West Africa for the first time, BBC reports.
Several drugs are under development, but they have not been fully tested and most are in very short supply.
Dr Peter Horby, of the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford, said the first trials could begin in West Africa as early as November.
"We want to evaluate these carefully, properly, in affected countries in West Africa," he told the BBC.
"For the next one or two weeks we'll be doing site assessments and we'll be working with the WHO on identifying which drugs to prioritise, and then there'll be a number of steps in setting up the systems - getting ethical approval through the countries and getting community participation and agreement to run the trials.
"Currently our wish is that we would hope to be able to enrol some patients sometime in November - that would be extremely quick by most clinical trial standards."
#Ebola #BBC #WestAfrica #WHO
WHO scientists reportedly expect number of cases to rise exponentially, raising the possibility that the disease could become endemic [regularly found] in West Africa.
Also, a new analysis of confirmed cases suggests death rates are higher than previously reported at about 70% of all cases.
Dr Dye, co-author of the study, called for "the most forceful implementation of present control measures and for the rapid development and deployment of new drugs and vaccines".
It came as The Wellcome Trust charity announced that experimental drugs would be tested in West Africa for the first time, BBC reports.
Several drugs are under development, but they have not been fully tested and most are in very short supply.
Dr Peter Horby, of the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford, said the first trials could begin in West Africa as early as November.
"We want to evaluate these carefully, properly, in affected countries in West Africa," he told the BBC.
"For the next one or two weeks we'll be doing site assessments and we'll be working with the WHO on identifying which drugs to prioritise, and then there'll be a number of steps in setting up the systems - getting ethical approval through the countries and getting community participation and agreement to run the trials.
"Currently our wish is that we would hope to be able to enrol some patients sometime in November - that would be extremely quick by most clinical trial standards."
#Ebola #BBC #WestAfrica #WHO
