Liberian doctor records success treating Ebola patients with HIV drugs

A doctor in Liberia is recording success treating Ebola patients with “Lamivudine”, an HIV drug. He said he tried it out of sheer desperation.

Dr. Gobee Logan has given the drug to 15 Ebola patients, and 13 of them survived.

Outside Logan's Ebola center in Tubmanburg, four of his recovering patients walk the grounds, always staying inside the fence that separates the Ebola patients from everyone else.

A report by WLWT 5, quoted one of the patients, Elizabeth Kundu, 23, as saying: "My stomach was hurting; I was feeling weak; I was vomiting. They gave me medicine, and I'm feeling fine. We take it, and we can eat -- we're feeling fine in our bodies."

The 13 patients received the drug in the first five days of their illness. The two patients who died received it between days five and eight.

Logan therefore said: "I'm sure that when [patients] present early, this medicine can help. I've proven it right in my center."

Logan believes the drug could cause liver problems but insists that it was worth the risk since Ebola kills too.

Reacting to the fact that most researchers would disapprove his treatment since only real study can prove efficacy, Logan said: "Our people are dying and you're talking about studies? It's a matter of doing all that I can do as a doctor to save some people's lives."

Logan said he got the idea to try Lamivudine when he read in scientific journals that HIV and Ebola replicate inside the body in much the same way.