(VOVworld) – The World Health Organization will permit the use of unproven ZMapp on Ebola patients.

The experimental drug has been approved for treating Ebola-infected patients in West Africa (Photo: Reuters)

At a medical ethics meeting on Tuesday in Geneva, WHO experts ruled that in the particular circumstances of the outbreak, and provided certain conditions are met, it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects.

ZMapp is extracted from the leaves of gene-modified tobacco plants. This medicine has been used on two staffers of the US NGO Samaritan’s Purse infected with the Ebola virus in Liberia. The two patients have shown signs of improvement with ZMapp. But another patient, a Spanish missionary who used ZMapp, died at a hospital in Madrid.