The World Health Organization says no drugs have been proven effective in treating Ebola despite the development of more than 120 medications, including one that was said to have 'worked like a miracle' on two American health workers who contracted the virus while in Liberia.

In a news conference Friday, WHO said they have reviewed and assessed a long list of potential anti-Ebola drugs but none of those have so far been proven effective.

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WHO scientist Martin Friede clarified during the conference that lamivudine, a treatment used on HIV patients, was not effective on Ebola cases. Doctors had tried the drug on Ebola patients after one medical practitioner used it.

Friede added that ZMapp, the drug that was given to two Ebola-infected American aid workers, likewise did not prove effective on other patients.

He explained that the recovery of patients Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who were administered with ZMapp, might have been due to the good care they received from the hospital, and that they were 'well-nourished' before catching the illness.

ZMapp is an experimental drug developed by a San Diego-based biotechnology firm from the harvested antibodies of Ebola-infected mice. 

At the time the drug was given to Brantly and Writebol, there was no approved safe dosage, and the two patients had to sign a waiver before taking the treatment.

Brantly's condition improved after just one dose, while Writebol had to take a second dose of ZMapp before she showed signs of improvement.

WHO added that more than a couple of drugs are often tested on Ebola patients that is why they cannot give any definitive conclusion on the efficacy of each drug pending further assessment.

"Because these patients received multiple drugs - many of them received two, three or sometimes even four drugs - we cannot conclude anything," Friede said.

Trials for other drugs will begin next month; these will include brincidofovir, taken from the U.S. firm Chimerix, and favipiravir, from Japan's Fujifilm.

Practitioners from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres will conduct the testing. They will look into how blood plasma of Ebola-recovered patients compare with those of individuals still infected.

WHO has published list of supposed Ebola treatments that it has ruled out, and warned the public against trying treatments that are not recommended by the organization.

"It's understandable that populations are willing to try anything, but there are a lot of charlatans out there who are trying to sell what in the old days would be called snake oil," Friede said

TagsEbola treatment