Dr. Abraham Borbor, one of three doctors infected with Ebola and treated with the experimental drug ZMapp has died in Monrovia.
His death was confirmed by Liberia’s Information Minister Lewis Brown on Monday.
” He died yesterday,” Brown said.
According to World Health Organsiation, ZMapp is one of several experimental treatments and vaccines for Ebola that are currently undergoing investigation. It has so far been used on six Ebola patients and the supplies have been exhausted. Among the beneficiaries, were the two American medical officers, Dr. Kent Brantly and the nurse, Nancy Writebol, who survived.
The Spanish priest who was flown to Madrid and who used the drug, did not survive. The Liberian doctor was the second person to have died after using the drug.
The drug’s U.S.-based manufacturer, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, says producing more of the drug will take time. There are other drugs in the pipeline but all are unproven and have yet to clear even the earliest stage of clinical trials.
The hemorrhagic fever has killed at least 1,427 people in the deadliest outbreak of the disease to date. In the week through to August 22, 297 new suspected, probable and confirmed cases of Ebola were reported in Liberia – the largest number of weekly cases since the epidemic began in March, according to a United Nations Children’s Fund report.
Ebola can kill up to 90 percent of those infected though the fatality rate in the current epidemic is around 60 percent.