Africa: China Sends Ebola Drug For Trials As Food Crisis Looms
By Staff Writer
Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group, a Chinese drug maker firm, with military ties has sent an experimental Ebola drug, JK-05 to Africa for use by Chinese aid workers and is planning clinical trials there to combat a deadly outbreak of the disease, executives say.
Jia Zhongxin, chief operating officer of Sihuan said the firm has supplied several thousand doses of the drug to the West African region and more doses could be sent if needed.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday October 15, a total of 4,493 people have died from the world’s worst Ebola outbreak on record, and the situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is deteriorating as of October 12, 8,997 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of the virus had been reported in seven countries, with majority of them in the three West African nations.
Governments and scientists around the globe have been racing against time to find a cure for the outbreak, which has spread as far as the United States and Europe.
US President Barack Obama has pledged to get more "aggressive" against the disease, as he has already deploying up to 4,000 troops in the region to help contain an outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever with the bulk of the effort targeting Liberia.
"Aid workers have already taken the drug with them, and if a case breaks out (amongst the aid workers), then the drug may be used," added Huo Caixia, Sihuan's assistant general manager.
Sihuan, part-owned by US investment bank Morgan Stanley, is hoping to get the drug fast-tracked for civilian use in China.
It has signed an agreement with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences a research unit, to seek approval for the drug's use in China and push it to market.
The drug, approved in China for emergency military use only, was initially developed by AMMS.
If it proves to be an effective cure it would be a big prize for China's medical sector and a boost to the country's soft power in Africa, an increasingly important partner for the world's No 2 economy.
Meanwhile, agriculture ministers from West African nations at the center of the Ebola epidemic say only money and global coordination will keep the health care crisis from becoming a food emergency.
In Sierra Leone, where thousands are infected and more than 900 deaths, 40% of the nation's farmers have abandoned their fields, which has lead to drop in annual economic growth of more than 11% has dropped to an expected 3%, says Agriculture Minister, Joseph Sam Sesay.
Liberia Agriculture Minister Florence Chenoweth says billions of dollars of outside agricultural investment is gone as farming has been decimated.
Des Moines, an official at the World Food Prize Foundation on Wednesday 15 said annual meeting in where government, academic, corporate, nonprofit agriculture and food experts gather to discuss issues of hunger and boosting agricultural productivity.