Ebola: Nigeria research team upbeat on halting disease

In the wake of fear that the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which has led to the death of a Nigerian nurse could become a national emergency, the Nigerian Ebola Research Team says it is upbeat on halting the possible spread of the disease.

Innocent Ujah, co-chair of the committee and director-general, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Yaba, said yesterday that the committee was in a meeting and would update Nigerians on the outcome of the committee’s resolution.

“I am currently in a meeting. We would communicate to Nigerians on the resolutions reached,” Ujah told BusinessDay in a telephone interview.

A six-man research committee inaugurated by the Federal Government on August 4, 2014 with a mandate to carry out research on the deadly contagious virus is co-chaired by Karniyus Gamanie, director-general, National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRID), Abuja, and Innocent Ujah, director-general, NIMR.

Maurice Iwu, professor of pharmacognosy and former chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), whose research in 1999 had found evidence of bitter kola inhibiting the growth of the Ebola virus in a laboratory, is also a part of the team.
Other members include Abdulsalami Nasidi, project coordinator, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control; director of public health and director, health planning, research and statistics, both of the Ministry of Health.

“We have taken note that Iwu’s research has not been concluded. We also feel that in addition to mass enlightenment, we should not neglect the issue of research on Ebola disease,” said Onyebuchi Chukwu, minister of health, adding that researches were going on across laboratories worldwide on vaccines for the treatment of the virus.

Chukwu said the committee should receive and verify claims relating to the treatment of the disease, including uncompleted researches carried out in 1999 in the United States of America by Iwu and his team as well as collate and analyse related research findings globally.

This development comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) is to convene a panel of medical ethicists to explore the use of experimental treatment in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa. While there is no registered medicine or vaccine against the virus currently, there are several experimental options under development.

The recent use of experimental medicine ZMapp in the treatment of two infected Americans who have so far shown signs of improvement in the US has raised questions about whether medicine that has never been tested and shown to be safe in people should be used in the outbreak and, given the extremely limited amount of medicine available, if it is used, who should receive it.
“We are in an unusual situation in this outbreak. We have a disease with a high fatality rate without any proven treatment or vaccine. We need to ask the medical ethicists to give us guidance on what the responsible thing to do is,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general, WHO.”