WHO endorses using Ebola survivors' blood to help infected patients
With limited vaccine supply still months away, officials approve transfusing blood of those who've beaten the disease in West Africa
As medical researchers struggle to produce desperately needed drugs to fight the Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organisation endorsed an old-school remedy that is already abundant in Africa - the blood of people who have survived the infection.
Health officials acknowledged that their support for blood transfusions was motivated by emotion as well as by science. Limited quantities of a tested vaccine will not be available until November at the earliest, and stocks of experimental drugs such as ZMapp may not be ready until next year.
"One of the things driving fear and panic in communities is the belief that there is no treatment for Ebola," said Marie-Paule Kieny, an assistant director general at the UN's health agency. "We have to change the sense that there is no hope."
But to others, the move looked more like an act of desperation than a decision based on clinical evidence.
"It's an unproven therapy," said Professor Dr William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the United States. "It should be evaluated critically before we invest huge amounts of money."
The concept behind the transfusions is simple: the blood plasma of those who have recovered from Ebola contains antibodies that were successful in fighting the virus. If these antibodies are pumped into an infected person, they might help the recipient fight the disease.