The leader of the World Health Organization criticized the drug industry on Monday, saying that the drive for profit was one reason no cure had yet been found for Ebola.
In a speech
at a regional conference in Cotonou, Benin, Dr. Margaret Chan, the
director general of the organization, also decried the glaring absence
of effective public health systems in the worst-affected countries.
At
least 13,567 people are known to have contracted the Ebola virus in the
latest outbreak, and 4,951 have died, according to the latest data on the W.H.O. website, which was updated on Friday. All but a few of the cases have been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Dr. Chan said her organization had long warned of the consequences of greed in drug development and of neglect in public health.
In
the midst of the Ebola crisis, she said, these “two W.H.O. arguments
that have fallen on deaf ears for decades are now out there with
consequences that all the world can see, every day, on prime-time TV
news.”
The
Ebola virus was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then
known as Zaire, in 1976. But because it was confined to impoverished
African countries, Dr. Chan said, there was no incentive to develop a
vaccine until this year, when Ebola became a broader threat.
Graphic: Ebola Facts: What Is Being Done to Improve Medical Treatment in Africa?
“A
profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that
cannot pay,” she said. “W.H.O. has been trying to make this issue
visible for ages. Now people can see for themselves.”
Dr.
Chan reiterated her contention that the Ebola crisis “is the most
severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times.”
Efforts
to find a cure have been stepped up in recent months as the disease has
spread, with a small outbreak in Nigeria and isolated cases in Mali,
Senegal, Spain and the United States. At an emergency meeting in
September, the United Nations Security Council declared the Ebola crisis
a threat to international security.
Officials at the W.H.O. and at other public health authorities reported on Oct. 24
that they hoped to begin trials of vaccines as early as December, and
that it should be known by April whether they are effective.
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U.N. Employee Under Treatment for Ebola in France
The health ministry said in a statement on its website that the patient had contracted the virus in Sierra Leone and was being treated in a military hospital near Paris.
-
For Man in Ebola Virus Cleanup, a History of Fraud
Sal Pane, the chief safety officer of Bio-Recovery Corporation, which cleaned Dr. Craig Spencer’s home, was accused of mortgage fraud in 2009 by the attorney general at the time, Andrew M. Cuomo.
-
Alarmed by Ebola, Public Isn’t Calmed by ‘Experts Say’
Shifting guidelines on how to handle Ebola, combined with a mistrust of elites, have fed the public’s mistrust of assurances by government officials and scientists.
Researchers
have been testing two experimental vaccines in healthy volunteers in
the United States and in other countries outside the main outbreak
region in West Africa. One has been developed by the National Institutes
of Health and GlaxoSmithKline, and the other by the Canadian government
and NewLink Genetics.
Testing on humans of at least five other vaccines could begin in early 2015, W.H.O. officials have said.
Doctors,
nurses and other health workers have been especially susceptible to
infection because of the way the disease spreads through contact with
fluids. In Sierra Leone on Monday, the authorities reported that a fifth
local physician had died of the disease, news agencies reported.
The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, speaking on Monday at a news conference in Vienna, warned against what he called overly strict international restraints on the movement of health workers who are fighting Ebola.
Some
countries and some states in the United States have quarantined health
professionals returning from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone. Other
countries, including Canada and Australia, have gone further, temporarily halting the issuance of visas to citizens of the worst-affected countries.
The
best way to stop this virus is to stop this virus at its source, rather
than limiting for work, or restricting the movement of people or
trade.” Mr. Ban said. He called Ebola health workers “extraordinary
people who are giving of themselves — they are risking their own lives.”
