US Officials Unveil Plan to Test Ebola Drugs

NEW ORLEANS --The quest for an Ebola treatment is picking up speed. Federal officials have unveiled a plan to test multiple drugs at once, in an umbrella study with a single comparison group to give fast answers on what works.

"This is novel for us" and is an approach pioneered by cancer researchers, said Dr. Luciana Borio, head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Ebola response. "We need to learn what helps and what hurts" and speed treatments to patients, she said.

She outlined the plan Wednesday at an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference in New Orleans....

Everyone in the umbrella study would get supportive care, such as intravenous fluids, then be assigned to receive one of several drugs or be in a comparison group. That's needed because without one, there's no way to know if any problems or deaths are from the drug or the disease, Cox said....

Meanwhile, at least 30 scientists were barred from the conference because Louisiana state officials told attendees to stay away if they had traveled to certain West African countries or had contact with an Ebola patient in the last 21 days, Ebola's maximum incubation period. One was Dr. Amanda Tiffany of Doctors Without Borders, who was to have given a talk on how to limit the spread of Ebola, based on her work on some of the very first cases in Guinea."

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