Ship the HIV drug Lamivudine to Africa now

Gabriel Gorbee Logan

I read about a Liberian doctor a few days ago, Gabriel Gorbee Logan that started experimenting with drugs he had in his clinic to see if there was anything that would stop or cure Ebola in his patients. 15 of his patients got the drug Lamivudine that is a HIV drug, 13 of them got so much better already after 2 days that they started to function normally, 2 died. The difference between the survivors and the deceased was that the 13 came in 1-5 days after getting sick and the others 5-8 days after. This gives a lot of hope and as we have a (world) crisis with an accelerating spread of the decease there is not more to do than give it a shot, at large scale and distribution.

Today I read an article by Swedish doctor talking about anything else than giving Ebola patients Lamivudine. He mentioned about that the spread of the decease is getting out of our hands and compared it to a forest fire with strong winds igniting one part after the other, new parts lacking fire-fighters. Concluding the article trying to simulate some hopes mentioning that the international community has started to act planning to put more hospitals in the affected African areas. Outrageous, I must say and ignorant as the distribution of Lamivudine is a much greater promise even though not clinically tested yet (takes years) and no immediate need waiting for new hospitals to come up, at least buying time until buildings and professionals are in place. People are dying and the decease is spreading at an accelerated rate. Sick people comes to hospitals already full, being sent home. With Lamivudine at hand those people could be sent home with the cure and instructions how to take it, pretty simple. Distributing Lamivudine to existing clinics and even directly out to villages is the fastest way to curb the plague.

Take the promise and the risk for God’s sake.