EBOLA: US 'to send' untested Ebola drug to Liberia

Liberia has said it will receive doses of an experimental Ebola drug to treat infected doctors in the West African country.
A statement, published on the Liberian presidency's website on Monday, said the United States had approved a request from Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to ship the medicine, ZMapp, after a direct appeal to US President Barack Obama on Friday.



However, a spokesperson for the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Department said US authorities had simply assisted in connecting the Liberian government with the drug's manufacturer.
"Since the drug was shipped for use outside the US, appropriate export procedures had to be followed," the HHS spokesperson said, adding the drug company had worked directly with the Liberian government.

The head WHO, Margaret Chan, had authorised the dispatch of additional doses of the experimental drug to Liberia to support the treatment of affected doctors. Those doses will be delivered by a WHO expert this week.
Lewis Brown, Liberian information minister, told the Reuters news agency that it was not clear how many doses of the drug had been sent, but it could be in Monrovia within the next 48 hours.
ZMapp, produced by California-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, has already been used to treat two US aid workers and a Spanish priest infected with Ebola.