Ebola Drug Supply Is "Exhausted" After Doses Sent To Africa

The Ebola drug given to two Americans and a Spanish priest has been sent to treat infected doctors in two West African countries, and the supply of the medicine is now gone, its manufacturer said.


Countries including Nigeria and Liberia had requested the drug, called ZMapp. Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., based in San Diego, said it has complied with every request for the drug that was authorized by legal and regulatory authorities. The drug was provided at no cost, according to Mapp.

“It is our understanding that all patients offered treatment, treated, or expected to be treated were or are highly capable of providing informed consent for the use of an experimental drug not yet evaluated for safety in animals or people,” the company said yesterday in a statement.

Mapp and its partners, Defyrus Inc. and a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., are working with the U.S. government to quickly increase production, the company said.

“Additional resources are being brought to bear on scaling up,” the company said. “The emergency use of an experimental medicine is a highly unusual situation.”

Providing a small amount of an experimental drug to West Africa won’t help control the outbreak, said Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The focus needs to remain on basic public health and infection control measures, he said.

Mapp, in its statement, didn’t identify which countries had received the remaining doses.