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 Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), which ran the
trials of favipiravir in Guinea, said mortality rates fell from 30
to 15 percent in patients with a low to moderate Ebola count but was
not effective on those with a high level of the virus.
The level of the Ebola virus in a patient's blood is thought to be
determined by the amount of time since infection as well as age and
genetics.
"We think this is a sufficiently encouraging sign for it to be made
available to Ebola patients more widely," said Augustin Augier,
secretary general of ALIMA, which runs the treatment center in
Nzerekore, in southeast Guinea.
An outbreak of Ebola has killed close to 10,000 people across West
Africa over the last year. The number of new cases has plummeted but
officials have said much work still needs to be done before the
virus is snuffed out in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three
worst affected nations.
Guinea's government has already authorized the use of favipiravir in
other Ebola centers where there are 40 patients.
Several health officials said the drug should be given in Sierra
Leone, where more than 160 patients are suspected of carrying the
virus.
"It isn't a miracle cure but it could help by improving chances of
survival and getting people to come in for treatment earlier," said
Philippe Maughan, at the humanitarian branch of the European
Commission.
ALIMA also wants to make it available to direct Ebola contacts, such
as a baby breast-fed by an infected mother, as a preventative
measure.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) said more research should be
done. "There are not sufficient data to draw firm conclusions about
this drug's efficacy against Ebola," a spokeswoman said.
Asked whether the WHO would facilitate the use of favipiravir more
widely, she said: "It is up to national regulatory authorities how
and whether to use it."
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The WHO has received hundreds of drug proposals, including
unconventional treatments such as gastric juice from vultures, and
has now narrowed the field down to 8-10 candidates.
Favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of Japan's Fujifilm to treat
flu, has been used on some Western Ebola patients. No negative side
effects were reported among 80 patients during the Guinea trial.
Unlike some of the other drugs, there are thousands of doses
available and it is relatively cheap.
The trial, sponsored by French health research body INSERM and made
public on Monday at a medical conference, envisaged testing at least
120 patients, but falling cases in Guinea has made that difficult.
The trial of another experimental drug, brincidofovir, in Liberia
was canceled due to a lack of patients.
(Additional reporting by Saliou Samb in Conakry and Misha Hussain
for the Thomson Reuters Foundation; Editing by David Lewis and Robin
Pomeroy)
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