Ugandan authorities on Tuesday said health workers have got the permission from Uganda National Council for Science and Technology and National Drug Authority to use experimental Ebola treatments in the country, a week after the disease spread over the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo, reported Reuters.
“Happy to inform you all that we got clearance from both Uganda National Council for Science and Technology and National Drug Authority to bring in the Therapeutic treatment for #Ebola patients in the country,” Uganda’s Health Minister, Jane Ruth Aceng, said on Twitter.
The World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the treatments approved for shipment to Uganda were Mapp Biopharmaceutical’s ZMapp, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc’s Regeneron and Remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences.
“The protocols for the fourth being submitted,” he noted in an email. “Logistics underway with MSF support for importation of a few courses about 10 each.”
The first Ebola case was reported in Uganda last week after two people who had traveled from Congo died of the disease, the WHO said.
The U.N. health agency confirmed that there have so far been no known cases of Ebola spreading between people in Uganda as all recorded patients had traveled in from Congo.
Notably, a three-year-old boy from the same family who was sent back to Congo after testing positive for the disease died at the weekend, Congo’s health ministry confirmed.
The second worst outbreak of the disease on record has already killed more than 1,411 people in Congo since August. Four experimental therapeutic treatments are already being used in Congo.
Last week on Friday, a WHO panel decided not to declare an international emergency over Congo’s Ebola outbreak despite its spread to Uganda as the risk of international spread remains low. The health organization said such a declaration could cause too much economic harm.
