American and European medical workers (some with Doctors without Borders - MSF in French) beginning trials despite widespread condemnation by African health experts.

Even though African medical professionals continue to press for more traditional ways of managing the Ebola disease in patients – rehydration therapy, with a proven survival stat of 90 percent or more – a trial for a ‘possible treatment’ still began on the 1st of January 2015 at ELWA 3, an MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Ebola Management Centre in Paynesville, Monrovia.

Led by Oxford University from the United Kingdom, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, and against the wishes of relatives of test patients and African health professionals – the trial will proceed nonetheless in a bid to determine if a new manufactured chemical brincidofovir could be an effective portion for Ebola.

Meanwhile test patients, who could otherwise be receiving treatment through rehydration therapy, would be largely denied hydration regimen.  The trials have come under severe opposition in West Africa.

African medical professionals, especially the National Health Association (NHA) of Ghana, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal have vehemently spoken against the trials in Liberia, calling it inhuman in some instances:

[quote_box_center]We oppose these block-headed trials of newly manufactured chemicals by Western Drug Companies in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone for the same reason that any Food and Drugs Board in any country around the world would oppose these concoctions by European Pharmaceutical Companies. These things they are trying are not vaccines. These are concoctions with no track record in animals. We abhor what the Americans and the Europeans are doing here. They are forcing their way through viable treatment for Ebola patients in Liberia at every corner. We have lives to save here not try portions they think would help them come up with the next biological weapon.[/quote_box_center]

Though the administrators in charge of the trials insist that taking part in the trial is completely voluntary, the NHA has rubbished the claims. Another worrying issue for the NHA is that the trials are designed without a control group (a group that would not receive the medication). The UK Company claims that this strategy was taken in order to include as many Ebola positive patients as possible. But the NHA has condemned the action:

[quote_box_center]How can you have a so-called ‘clinical-trial’ without a control group? What nonsense? Only in Africa do they come and put guns to our heads and force us into doing unscientific and callous tests in the name of helping Africans. These drug companies from America and Europe are not fooling anyone. We know what they are doing. We have – just cold killers! The sensible thing any scientist would do is to have a large control group of patients who are being treated with oral rehydration – something we know already works – if at all this chemical has any survival stats from animal tests.[/quote_box_center]

The MSF (Doctors Without Borders) hopes that the chemical brincidofovir might reduce deaths from Ebola, but it still stressed:

“This is not a miracle cure and it is still not known whether it will help patients survive the virus.”

“So why try it when there is something that we already know works? Why find a solution to a problem that does not exist?” said Dr. Abe Adjettey of the NHA.

“The drug, brincidofovir, will not be available at the medicine store, only under the specific conditions of the trial at ELWA 3” says Dr Jake Dunning, Trial Clinical Lead from Oxford University.

“We know that is has been taken safely by over 1,000 people in clinical trials for other viral infections and we know that is has been shown to be effective in laboratory tests that use Ebola-infected cells. What we do not know yet is if it will be effective against Ebola in humans – this is why we must do a trial,” he added.

Dr. Mamadou Diallo of Senegal and a member of the NHA responded to Dr. Dunning’s statements saying:

[quote_box_center]”They are foolish and devoid of scientific logic. Unless Dr Jake Dunning has an ulterior motive and believes he can fool us here in Liberia. We do Science too, only we don’t carry it on our foreheads the way they do. If Dr. Jake Dunning was taking a class under me in Biology, those statements alone will fail him. You don’t go from ‘effective in laboratory tests that use Ebola-infected cells‘ to trials in humans. Are you an animal?”[/quote_box_center]

The NHA is hoping that those who do not wish to be given the new treatment receive the same standard supportive care as those who do at the MSF centre. The NHA is calling on the International Community to bring pressure to bear on MSF so they can start using hydration therapy as a viable treatment for Ebola.

As of now, the trial is running against the approval of the Liberian Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority, and condemnation from the ethics committees from the University of Liberia, University of Ghana, University of Nigeria and the University of Lagos .

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~ Success is a horrible teacher. It seduces the ignorant into thinking that he can’t lose. It seduces the intellectual into thinking that he must win. Success corrupts; Only usefulness exalts. ~ WP. Narmer Amenuti (which names translate: Dances With Lions), was born by The River, deep within the heartlands of Ghana, in Ntoaboma. He is a public intellectual from the Sankoré School of Critical Theory, where he trained and was awarded the highest degree of Warrior Philosopher at the Temple of Narmer. As a Culture Critic and a Guan Rhythmmaker, he is a dilettante, a dissident and a gadfly, and he eschews promotional intellectualism. He maintains strict anonymity and invites intellectuals and lay people alike to honest debate. He reads every comment. If you enjoyed this essay and would like to support more content like this one, please pour the Ancestors some Libation in support of my next essay, or you can go bold, very bold and invoke them. Here's my CashApp: $TheRealNarmer

13 COMMENTS

  1. This news is so troubling. It is a tragedy that Africans have to endure the heavy hand of the U.S. which is always trying to impose itself on us and others around the world. But what is worse is that Africans do not take control of the situation. Arrest those charlatan doctors and try them for murder! They are not helping treat Ebola patients. They are playing with the lives of our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and relatives. The only effective cure for Ebola is hydration and in ignoring that remedy, they are only standing around while watching people die. They should be imprisoned at once.

    • Very troubling news Afua. Very disturbing. Nauseating. I feel like I have Ebola from reading what havoc the MSF is reeking on poor Africans. Where are all the West African governments? Where are they? Just eating and going to sleep.

  2. The NHA and the MSF are the same people. So the NHA telling the MSF something is like the right hand telling the left hand. The West is in on the biggest scheme yet to try to kill Africans. The failed terrorist attempt on the Gambian president was another attempt. We know this is the game they play. Africans have to stand up against terror, especially white terror masquerading in a doctor’s uniform.

    • The NHA is not perfect. But at least the speak up against the devils – the MSF – or as they are often known in America, Doctors Without Borders.

  3. Too bad the African doctors who should be critiquing this are mostly in the U.S. and Europe living in a nice house.

      • These African doctors especially educated in Ghana, Nigeria etc. are the problem. They are stupid and above all childish. “The working conditions in Africa are not favorable” – well then change it, stay on and fight and change it, don’t run away to America, to the UK, to France? What cowards really!

  4. Doctors Without Borders thinks that Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are freshmen labs where they can make their errors before getting a real job in the States. It is up to leaders in those governments, however, to put a stop to this, because nobody in the States will.

    • How can we put a stop to this when they continue to peddle the petro-dollar around forcing us to bend to their requests. When an American firm wants to test drugs in Liberia, all they do it tell the president of Liberia, we are going to give you $2M. That’s it. Its hard to fight against America especially when we have to fight the puppets they have here as presidents and ministers of state.

  5. I know Doctors Without Borders. I worked with them. They are generally, by and large, foul! African countries should get rid of them. They are a western tool for planting Biological weapons. A good example is what is happening in Liberia right now. We all know oral rehydration works, the biology is simple, Ebola drains the vital organs of fluids. Replenish it, give people anti-nauseous medicine and vitamins, etc. but they won’t do it. You know why? Read the beginning of my comment.

  6. There is going to come a time, we may not be able to let in a single health worker into our countries from Europe. The license they take in testing all kinds of drugs on innocent people is just barbaric.

  7. MSF is a barbaric organization. And the U.S. is violently petulant and childish – sending 3,000 troops into Liberia for what? You Africans may be just right, the MSF is a handle of the west in spreading disease, not curing it. Otherwise they would do the right thing – change protocol, ensure re-hydration of patients as the basis for treatment. Anything else, like I read here on your other article, is a slaughter!

  8. The temerity of MSF is wrong and its stupefying knowing that it is human lives they are playing their games with here!

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