Who should receive experimental treatment (of Ebola) Essay

Who should receive experimental treatment (of Ebola) - Essay Example One such mechanism is the emergency Investigational New Drug (IND) initiative (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). The Ebola virus has been principally restricted to underdeveloped nations of the world. Consequently, no vaccine or drug to address it has been produced, despite its presence for nearly four decades. The current outbreak of this disease has been of such gravity that the developed nations have been seriously striving to produce vaccines and drugs to deal with it. The rapidity with which this dread infection is spreading has necessitated an approach that ignores the existing rules governing the delivery of new drugs. The WHO clearly stated that when certain conditions were satisfied, it would not be unethical to provide vaccines and drugs, in the experimental stage to prevent infection (The Economist, 2014, p. 85). The experimental serum ZMapp, developed by the US, was injected to two missionaries of the US, after they had been infected with the Ebola virus in Liberia. These missionaries were subsequently relocated to the US and were undergoing treatment in that nation. In the aftermath of this incident, the WHO conducted a meeting to discuss the ethical issues involved in administering experimental drugs to individuals infected with the Ebola virus (Dionne, 2014). In addition, this drug had also been given to a small number of US health officials who had been infected with the Ebola virus in West Africa. The apparent success of this drug in combating the dread Ebola virus induced the US health officials to ask some of the most advanced biology laboratories to present it with plans for producing it (The Guardian, 2014). As such, the provision of healthcare is biased, and the above evidence demonstrates it adequately. The American missionaries had been given the promising new drug, whereas no attempt was