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 The separate trials, involving up to several hundred patients, are
designed to test the drugs brincidofovir, from the U.S. firm
Chimerix, and favipiravir, from Japan's Fujifilm, and to see how
well blood plasma taken from Ebola survivors may work in curing
those still infected.
Initial results could be available in February 2015, MSF said in a
statement.
The studies will not use placebo groups and will involve only Ebola
patients who give informed consent. Researchers will monitor the
patients and collect data on survival rates and other effects. The
trials can be stopped early if a treatment begins to show clear
benefits or harm.
Researchers said it may also be possible in coming months to add new
experimental drugs to the trials if they become ready for testing.
Annick Antierens, a doctor who coordinates MSF's investigational
partnerships, said the cooperation involved in conducting the trials
was unprecedented and "represents hope for patients to finally get a
real treatment".
The West Africa Ebola epidemic has infected more than 13,000 people,
the vast majority in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and killed
some 5,000 of them, according to World Health Organization data.
The three trials will be led by different teams: Britain's
University of Oxford will lead one in Liberia, and the Dutch Antwerp
Institute of Tropical Medicine and the French National Institute of
Health and Medical Research will lead two others in Guinea.
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MSF said the trials are designed to minimize disruption to patients
and respect internationally-accepted ethical standards with the aim
that "sound scientific data will be produced and shared for public
good".
The charity urged drugmakers to scale up production now, to try to
ensure no gap between the end of the trials and any large-scale
introduction of the medicines if they are found to be safe and
effective.
"We need to keep in mind that there is no guarantee that these
therapies will be the miracle cure," Antierens said. "But we need to
do all we can to try the products available today to increase the
chances of finding an effective treatment."
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by John Stonestreet)
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