Ethics and Ebola

On Saturday, 9th May, 2015, after months of no reported cases, Liberia marked the end of the devastating Ebola outbreak. The Ebola outbreak claimed nearly 4700 lives in the small west African nation and more than 10000 lives across Africa. Only after the personal sacrifices of over hundreds of medical personnel and aid workers was the outbreak contained. More than the loss of lives, the outbreak has forced the international aid and medical communities to ask hard questions of themselves. One debate which the crisis sparked off in the bioethics community pertains to whether or not patients suffering from critical diseases like Ebola should be administered drugs which have not undergone clinical trials. Another aspect of the debate was concerned with the moral defensibility of conducting a placebo controlled clinical trial in cases where untreated patients are almost sure to lose their lives. Individuals have proposed alternative testing mechanisms like side by side tests in which different drugs are tested on different patients with no placebo control .However, this approach has been criticized by the USFDA who maintain that controlled experiments are a necessary evil.



Richter, R. (2015, April 21). The Ebola crisis: An ethical balancing act. Retrieved May 9, 2015, from  http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2015/04/21/the-ebola-crisis-an-ethical-balancing-act/

Stanglin, D. (2015, May 9). Liberia is free of Ebola, says World Health Organization. Retrieved May 9, 2015, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/05/09/liberia-is-free-of-ebola-says-world-health-organization/27034655/