Spanish missionary dies from Ebola virus
Print Edition
A SPANISH missionary priest being treated for Ebola died in a Madrid hospital yesterday amid a worldwide debate over who should get experimental Ebola treatments.
After holding a teleconference with medical experts around the world, the World Health Organization declared it is ethical to use unproven Ebola drugs and vaccines in the current outbreak in West Africa provided the right conditions are met.
Its statement, however, sidestepped the key question of how to decide who should get the limited drugs.
Two American aid workers and the Spanish priest who died had been given a new Ebola drug named ZMapp, which has never been tested in humans. On Monday, the San Diego-based company that makes it said its supply was now “exhausted.”
Two more ZMapp treatments were reportedly heading to Liberia to be used on two infected doctors — the first Africans to receive the experimental drug.
The UN health agency says 1,013 people have died so far in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa of the 1,848 suspected or confirmed cases recorded by authorities. The killer virus — spread by direct contact with bodily fluids such as blood, diarrhea and vomit — was detected in Guinea in March and has since spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia and possibly Nigeria.
With news of the three Westerners getting the novel drug, some in West Africa have protested that they are being denied a chance to try it.
“We can’t afford to be passive while many more die,” said Aisha Dab, a Senegalese-Gambian journalist.
Officials in Sierra Leone and Guinea expressed interest in getting experimental treatments but haven’t yet asked.
The Spanish missionary, 75-year-old Miguel Pajares, died in Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, the hospital and his order said. The hospital would not confirm he had been treated with the drug, but his order and Spain’s Health Ministry said earlier that he would be. His body will be cremated today to avoid any further public health risks, the hospital said.
Pajares had worked for the San Juan de Dios hospital order, a Catholic aid group, helping to treat people with Ebola in Liberia when he became ill and was evacuated.
WHO decided it is ethical to use experimental medicines and vaccines in West Africa even though there’s no evidence yet that these treatments can actually help fight Ebola. It said it was OK to use unproven treatments if patients were allowed informed consent, confidentiality and freedom of choice.
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