Debate erupts on 'repurposed' drugs for Ebola

摘要

Eleanor Fish is frustrated. The immunologist at the University of Toronto in Canada thinks she knows how to help save the lives of people battling Ebola-but nobody seems interested. Fish believes health care workers and people exposed to the virus should take Infergen, a synthetic interferon a that she has studied extensively and that has been used widely to treat hepatitis C and several other diseases. Pharmunion BSV Development, the Ukrainian company that makes it, has offered to ship 60,000 vials to Africa for free. But as Science went to press this week, Fish had tried in vain to get the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO) or Doctors Without Borders, two organizations that might help distribute it. And other scientists are skeptical of the plan, because monkey studies have not clearly shown that Infergen is effective against Ebola. That should be the threshold for trying any drug or vaccine in the current outbreak, says Thomas Geisbert, a longtime Ebola researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.