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Japan ready to offer untested flu drug for Ebola treatment

26 Comments
By Mari Yamaguchi

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26 Comments
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Let's hope it helps. Over 1,400 deaths is simply tragic.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I hope this works.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

At this stage anything is worth trying.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

What about the greedy China, is communist party doing anything good for the rest of the world? Japan sincerely steps to the plate, and hopefully this drug will work well with Ebola. Well done, Japan.

-16 ( +3 / -19 )

Wow! In my experience in Japan, doctors and medicines here are woeful. Not sure I would want to be dabbling in any of this.

-19 ( +2 / -21 )

This is a first step and hopefully one that will at least help with the epidemic. But Im looking at the US producing a medicine that would be fully tested and used from the strains extracted from the two patients that arrived in Atlanta. Wait and see.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

What about the greedy China, is communist party doing anything good for the rest of the world? Japan sincerely steps to the plate, and hopefully this drug will work well with Ebola. Well done, Japan.

Bgood41 -- LOL. First off, using this subject to take a shot at China is just so juvenile, and shows such an inferiority complex on your part. People are dying, and the only thing that comes to you is putting down China? Second, Japan is not "stepping to the plate", one company is. And I didn't read anywhere that this company, or the government, intends to donate this medicine. That would be "well done".

1 ( +9 / -8 )

Drug companies are falling over themselves to test their very early stage experimental drugs on vulnerable people. They'd never be able to test them like this if they did trials properly. Why is Japan colluding in this? Ebola doesn't kill everyone who gets infected, many recover with the aid of good critical care nursing, and that's what probably helped those two who recovered, the drugs can't take any credit.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Nobody knows yet if these experimental drugs are working. The survival rate in this current Ebola epidemic is already about 50% without the drugs, so the drugs have to do much better than that.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

i hope it will work well,,,,

1 ( +2 / -1 )

many recover with the aid of good critical care nursing

Many? While the mortality varies by strain, Ebola kills between 50 and 90 percent of those who contract it. The current strain has killed about 70% of infected patients.

Given the substandard (and that's putting it kindly) levels of "critical care nursing" in most areas where this disease strikes, I think delivering medication (unproven or not) is the best recourse.

I didn't read anywhere that this company, or the government, intends to donate this medicine. That would be "well done".

It is implied that the medicine would be donated. In April, the Government of Japan gave $520,000 through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support the Ebola outbreak response in Guinea. And in August, $1.5 million provide additional support to efforts to aid is to be disbursed via the WHO, UNICEF and Red Cross. The communists, to their credit, have donated about $5 million in medical supplies, so Bgood41 is wrong in his assertion that PRC has done nothing. ROK, on the other hand? Crickets.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

. American doctor and missionary nurse were saved with untested vaccine. We need to try everything. It is worth a try.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

After that "I'm Legent" will be a reality. Drags must be tested! It can cause massive changes in DNAs. That will be fatal.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

A Canaadian company is also offering an experimental vaccine but health experts warn that using untested drugs can be dangerous and counterproductive. If the treatment does not work, it can produce a more virile strain.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I'd say "it can't hurt," butgiventhat it's untested and we don't know what effects it may have, it CAN hurt. Too many drug companies are rushing ut untested vaccines and other medicines, and it's worse when they seek government approval for mandatory vaccinations, as they are doing with young girls in one art of Japan as an experiment on HPV,or whatever it's called. I don't like that these people are being used as guinea pigs. At the very least they need to be warned that the company has zero idea what will happen if they accept treatment.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

As long as the patient is informed and gives their consent no problem, IMHO.

A few of my family were put in experimental cancer drugs after giving their consent. Not sure why this is such a big issue, let the patient decide if they want them or not.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I reiterate: If the treatment does not work, it can produce a more virile strain.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Techall.

How would it produce a more virile strain and if it does so how would it spread from the isolation ward.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The virus that is not affected by the drug will reproduce immune viruses. How will it get out of the isolation ward? What Isolation ward? We're talking about Africa here, how is the virus spreading now?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

techall.

So you think they would hand the drugs out willy-nilly to anyone.

Not in a controlled environment with proper supervision and follow up checks.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

it"S ME: Most of the antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs) are in hospitals.

In case of an emergency, Japan may respond to individual requests before any further decision by WHO, he said

That sounds kinda willy-nilly to me.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

@globalwatcher. There is no evidence to suggest the two missionaries were cured by the test drug. None at all.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

None at all.

Kent Brantly is a doctor with plenty of real world experience treating ebola. He specifically credited the experimental drug with saving his life. Do you know more than him?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

globalwatcherAug. 26, 2014 - 01:55PM JST

.>> American doctor and missionary nurse were saved with untested vaccine. We need to try everything. It is worth a try.

Elizabeth HeathAug. 27, 2014 - 01:11AM JST

@globalwatcher. There is no evidence to suggest the two missionaries were cured by the test drug. None at all.

True. We still do not know the long term outcome, but at least they are now released from hospital and are alive. Miracle!!

These families were preparing funerals instead. What would you do Elizabeth? Sending them to funerals? Is that your choice? I guess that is what you are suggesting here. Disappointed.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yeah, lets just make a bug that kills off all of humanity.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

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