FDA gave approval on Monday.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: Thomas Eric Duncan, the first hapless victim of Ebola in the US, who is now in a very critical condition in a hospital in Dallas, Texas, will be treated with an experimental drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Duncan was admitted to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on September 28 after he started showing symptoms of Ebola, while visiting the US from Liberia, a country in West Africa which is ravaged by the Ebola virus. He was confirmed to have contracted Ebola after the diagnosis of Centers for Disease Control on September 30. Since then, Duncan has been in the isolation ward of the hospital.
Candace White, the official spokeswomen of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas tweeted “He is now receiving an investigational medication, brincidofovir, for Ebola Virus Disease”
Brincidofovir is a new anti-viral medicine that got approval from the FDA today, on Monday, to be used as an experimental drug.
Brincidofovir is manufactured by Chimerix, a North Carolina-based pharmaceutical company. They got the approval after applying through FDA’s Emergency Investigational New Drug Applications.
According to the press release of Chimerix, they are “working closely with the FDA to finalize a clinical trial protocol.”
After the confirmation of Ebola in Duncan, more than 50 people who could have come in contact with him during or after his journey to the US are being monitored. Out of the 50 people, nine of them have come in close contact with Duncan, which includes four of his relatives with whom he stayed before moving to the hospital.
Also, NBC News freelance videographer Ashoka Mukpo, who was infected with Ebola in Liberia, was admitted to a hospital in Nebraska today, on Monday. The hospital authorities have moved him to an isolation ward, which is the fourth largest in the U.S.
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