A group of advocacy organizations sent a letter Tuesday urging the U.S. government to make an experimental Ebola treatment developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical accessible for clinical trials and emergency use in nations dealing with the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak.
The letter was addressed to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, and called for coordination with the World Health Organization, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, governments of affected nations, and humanitarian medical organizations.
The organizations specifically requested that the treatment, called MBP134, along with any other experimental therapies held by the U.S., be shared with those responding to the outbreak.
MBP134 is a monoclonal antibody treatment created through a long-running public-private partnership backed by BARDA. It was originally developed to address the Sudan virus, which is closely related to other ebolaviruses.
According to the letter, BARDA holds doses of MBP134 and has invested at least $241 million in Mapp for the treatment’s development. The letter was signed by Public Citizen, Health Global Access Project, AVAC, Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, Doctors for America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
Government data released Tuesday showed confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have risen to 837, including 196 fatalities. Currently, a limited number of experimental vaccines and treatments are under evaluation, but no approved options exist specifically for the Bundibugyo strain.
The World Health Organization has recommended that experimental treatments, including MBP134, be prioritized for this particular strain of the virus.
The advocacy groups noted that while the U.S. has confirmed it would make the therapy available to Americans at high risk, it has not publicly committed to sharing doses for trials or emergency use in the countries affected by the outbreak.
The organizations also called on the U.S. to include provisions for global access in future research agreements involving medical products developed with public funding.
