The company that manufactures an experimental Ebola drug said Monday it had sent the last of the medication to a West African country after receiving a request last week. “The available supply of ZMapp is exhausted,” Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego said in a statement, adding that it provided the drug at no cost.
Mapp’s disclosure comes amid growing sensitivity over whether West Africans have access to a drug that has been given to some Westerners. But it also underscores the fact that ZMapp and other experimental drugs are in such short supply that the overwhelming number of Ebola victims have no hope of ever receiving them.
Mapp’s statement said the recipients “include medical doctors in two West African countries,” as well as two U.S. missionaries who received the drug in recent weeks. It is not clear what effect the drug is having.
A statement from the office of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Monday said the Obama administration and U.S. regulators approved a request from the country Friday for doses of the drug to treat Liberian doctors. The release also said Liberia expects to receive “additional doses” of the drug from the World Health Organization later this week, also to aid Ebola-stricken doctors. Source: www.washingtonpost.com
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