Thursday, September 4, 2014

Drugs... not the solution anytime soon

I've read a lot about the possibility of drugs being available for Ebola - from vaccines to antidotes to "cures". Even my country, Canada, has been a focus of some of these discussions. But, I think we're placing far too much emphasis on this far-fetched, far-off, untested and experimental solution to Ebola. The fact is there are very, very few doses of these drugs. The fact is the drugs are NOT adequately tested for use on people. The fact is, up to now, the drugs have the same rate of survival as early, adequate treatment - about 50:50. The fact is it will take months or years to develop any one of these drugs, in sufficient quantities, for the market.
Again, the solution is containment, treatment and prevention... CDC, WHO, MSF, Red Cross... they all say that. We can "hope" for the best... but we know what to do... and, as the NIKE ad says, "Just do it!"

No comments:

Post a Comment