Korea to import Ebola drugs from Japan

The South Korean government has decided to bring in Ebola treatment drugs if a disease suspect is detected. The Health and Welfare Ministry said Wednesday said, "We made an agreement with Japanese pharmaceuticals firm Fujifilm and completed procedures for bringing in the Avigan drug," adding, "We talked with the Food and Drug Safety Ministry to add Avigan to the list of emergency drug introduction."

Three possible Ebola drugs are currently available globally, which are U.S.` ZMAP, Japan`s Avigan and Canada`s TKM-Ebola. All three are in clinical trial stages, however, making it difficult to adopt them for release in markets. ZMAP in particular is short of supply making imports particularly difficult. Meanwhile, Avigan and TKM-Ebola have enough production capacity, and the health ministry had requested cooperation by companies of these two countries. Ultimately, Avigan was selected due to geographical proximity.

Avigan is an anti-flu drug, which was recently found to be effective in Ebola treatment. Nevertheless, clinical trials were completed on just animals (monkeys) yet. Regardless, the Japanese government has reserves for 20,000 people given the absence of Ebola drugs currently available for sale. If this drug is included in the emergency drug import list, emergency treatment using this drug becomes possible when a person contracts Ebola. Fujifilm will provide Avigan for Korea for free. Yet, instead of pre-importing them, the drug will be brought in immediately when a case of a suspect arises.

Meanwhile, an open invitation of Ebola response medical workers to be dispatched to West Africa started on last Friday, and some 40 medical workers applied for a 10 person quota. Contrary to initial speculation that there will be no applicants due to safety reasons, applicants exceeded the quota. A health ministry official said, "The application deadline is November 7, and already four times the needed manpower have applied," adding, "We believe there will be no problem in recruiting doctors and nurses."