Canada offered doses of experimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat the outbreak in West Africa, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced on Tuesday.

According to some reports, the government will donate 1,000 doses of Ebola vaccine to victims affected in Africa. They will also reserve a limited supply of drugs in case they need it for domestic use or for further studies, Reuters reported.

Like Us on Facebook

Health Minister Rona Ambrose said she offered the drugs to WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan after the the international health agency announced that 12 international experts deemed the use of unproven treatments in the current outbreak as ethical.

Canadian researchers developed the experimental treatment in its government lab as a global resource to help fight the Ebola crisis, Ambrose added.

Experts made it clear that they should maintain high ethical standards throughout the treatment. Patients and families should give their full consent and receive complete transparency with regards to the implications of the treatment, the WHO explained.

Deputy chief public health officer Dr. Gregory Taylor told media they would need around six months to allow Canada to produce a large quantity of the Ebola drugs. The vaccine has proven effective in animals but it has not yet been tested in humans.

BioProtection Systems, a unit of Newlink Genetics that develops antiviral vaccines, closed a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense for studies bringing the Canadian vaccine to human testing.

Dr. Taylor, however, did not determine yet which of U.S. vaccines in development may be used in Africa besides the Canadian vaccine.

Some reports indicate that the Canada’s Public Health Agency also took part in the development of ZMapp, an experimental Ebola vaccine licensed by U.S. firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical. ZMapp was used to treat American aid workers in Liberia infected with the Ebola virus.

Apart from the experimental vaccines, Canada will also donate US$185,000 to the WHO to support its infection control and prevention efforts in West Africa.

Tagsvaccine, experimental drugs