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Clinical Trials Are Being Launched in Africa but Face Challenges in Designing Ethical Studies, Compensating Donors
WALL STREET JOURNAL Dec. 5, 2014
by Betsy McKay in Atlanta, David Gauthier-Villars in Conakry, Guinea, and Patrick McGroarty in Monrovia, Liberia
...Nearly a year after Ebola began spreading in West Africa, and with a proven drug or vaccine still far off, researchers are launching clinical trials on a product at hand: the blood of survivors.
They want to determine whether so-called convalescent plasma or serum, chock full of antibodies, can help fight off the disease. But they face a number of complexities in carrying out the trials, including persuading survivors to participate....
It took months for scientists and public-health experts to agree to study survivors’ blood as a possible treatment, and months more to work out how to attract participants, collect blood plasma, and design ethically sound trials among patients with a deadly disease. The World Health Organization issued guidance in September for collecting and transfusing survivors’ blood or blood plasma.
Dr. Bakary Oularé in Conakry, Guinea, has unded an association to assist those who survived the virus. TK
“This is not a simple intervention,” said Alan Magill, who steers Ebola research-and-development investments for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is spending $5.7 million on clinical trials of potential treatments, including blood plasma, in Guinea and other Ebola-affected countries. “It requires complex tools and very skilled people,” he said.
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