Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) will host clinical trials of new treatments for Ebola at three centers in West Africa.  Two will use drugs from a World Health Organization (WHO) shortlist, and the third will test blood and plasma therapy also endorsed by the WHO.

“This is an unprecedented international partnership which represents hope for patients to finally get a real treatment,” said MSF spokeswoman Annick Antierens.  The aim of the trials is to keep the patients alive during the critical first 14 days of the illness when the Ebola virus is replicating in the body.  If a patient survives that long, the immune system kicks in and starts producing antibodies that eventually destroy Ebola.

MSF will work with a French government team in Gueckedou, Guinea using the drug favipiravir, also known as Avigan.  That drug is produced by Japan’s Toyama Chemical Corporation. 

The University of Oxford is still looking for the right venue to test the antiviral drug brincidofovir, manufactured by Chimerix of Durham, North Carolina.

And in Conakry, Guinea, MSF and the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) will examine the effectiveness of convalescent blood and blood plasma therapy.