Simone Lanini, Alimuddin Zumla, John P A Ioannidis, Antonino Di Caro, Sanjeev Krishna, Lawrence Gostin, Enrico Girardi, Michel Pletschette, Gino Strada, Aldo Baritussio, Gina Portella, Giovanni Apolone, Silvio Cavuto, Roberto Satolli, Peter Kremsner, Francesco Vairo, Giuseppe Ippolito
The Ebola outbreak that has devastated parts of west Africa represents an unprecedented challenge for research and ethics. Estimates from the past three decades emphasise that the present effort to contain the epidemic in the three most affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) has been insufficient, with more than 24,900 cases and about 10,300 deaths, as of March 25, 2015. Faced with such an exceptional event and the urgent response it demands, the use of randomised controlled trials (RCT) for Ebola-related research might be both unethical and infeasible and that potential interventions should be assessed in non-randomised studies on the basis of compassionate use...
June 2015: Lancet Infectious Diseases