The clinical study was a safety trial of an experimental drug to treat ebola
Yes it was! But did it all go terribly wrong in the Jungles of West Africa?
Did you even bother to read the article I linked?
Note that the drug apparently
is not using the ebola virus itself. Rather, it uses small molecules which interfere with the ebola virus replicating itself. Think birth control for viruses. The trial was halted (note that this was before the current epidemic had blown up) because the FDA was concerned that the safety trials were initially using too high a dose. They were apparently concerned about possible toxic side effects of the drug, not that it would give people ebola. Drug trials usually start with a very small dose, then you wait awhile, then try a somewhat bigger dose, then you wait etc etc. That is why it can take decades to get new drug approved.
Since then, with the huge increase in ebola cases, the drug has been approved for emergency use.
But Tekmira announced in July that the trial had hit a road block: The FDA asked the company to halt the trial until it could provide more data to ensure the safety of the healthy volunteers, some of whom were being dosed with as much TKM-Ebola as would be given to a lethally infected patient. The hold was partly lifted in August, allowing Tekmira to offer the drug on an emergency basis to Ebola patients, but the trial itself is still on hiatus.
Note that at least one ebola patient has been treated with the drug, and has recovered. Supplies of the drug are very limited, but apparently at least a few other patients are being treated with it.
If the test of the experimental drug did "..... all go terribly wrong in the Jungles of West Africa" as you suggest, then the FDA would hardly be approving it for use on other patients, now would they? Nor would they be fast tracking production of the drug for other patients.
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