With three vaccines and several treatments for Ebola progress through
various stages of development, a major ethical question is emerging in light of
an anticipated shortage.
by John
Tyburski
Copyright © Daily
Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
How much
is an individual human life worth? Is one life worth more than another? Are
some people more important than others? Who decides? These are some of the
crucial ethical questions emerging as the world waits anxiously for anticipated
vaccines and treatments under development.
There are
currently no vaccines or specific treatments available for Ebola. When these
interventions eventually become available, most experts anticipate the number
of infections will far outnumber the supply. This raises two fundamental
questions. Who will be vaccinated or treated, and who will decide?
Another
serious question relating to the prospect of having new vaccines and therapies
is whether or not to deliver them to patients as fast as they become available
or to proceed with more caution as continuing safety evaluations are completed.
“It’s hard
to know what’s the right thing to do,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease expert and professor at Vanderbilt University.
Human
subject testing began earlier this month for a vaccine under development at the National Institutes of
Health, and another vaccine is to be tested in humans at the Walter Reed Army
Institute of Research. Even so, the earliest estimates for availability are
predicting a date sometime in 2015.
Health
officials do not expect the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be
controlled any time soon. Conservative estimates have more than 20,000
infections expected before the epidemic is reined in. Some have warned that the
total number of cases may be much larger, even approaching 100,000.
The
distribution of even a shortage of Ebola interventions will involve serious
deliberation because the decision of who to treat bears directly on how quickly
the outbreak is controlled.
“The
situation is already a tinderbox,” said Oliver Brady, a University of Oxford
epidemiologist. “The decisions have to be made now.”
According to
the World Health Organization, almost 5,000 people have become ill with Ebola.
Among these, almost 2,500 have died.
Ebola
virus is transmitted from infected individuals through bodily fluids including
blood, urine, saliva, and vomit. Caregivers and any others that come into
contact with patients and their specimens, clothing, bedding, and even corpses
are at extreme risk for contracting the virus.
Vaccines
are being developed to prevent infections, while treatments under development
will potentially be useful in reducing the death toll.
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