France oks 'experimental treatments' on Ebola-hit nurse
France's health minister on Friday authorised "experimental treatments" for a French nurse who has contracted Ebola and is now being treated in a Paris hospital.
"She is receiving experimental treatments," Marisol Touraine said, adding that these drugs were administered "as soon as she arrived."
A medical plane carrying the young female Doctors Without Borders (MSF) volunteer arrived in France from Liberia overnight.
She was then taken immediately to the Begin military hospital on the outskirts of the capital.
"She was immediately transferred to the hospital in conditions of absolute security and immediately taken into care," Touraine said.
The nurse is "currently in a confinement chamber and has dedicated staff looking after her."
The minister "exceptionally" authorised the importation and use of several experimental drugs to combat the Ebola virus, which has so far killed more than 2,600 people in West Africa.
The drugs authorised in France were Favipiravir from Japan, ZMapp from the United States and TKM-100-802 from Canada, according to France's Official Journal.
The nurse, who has not been identified, is the first French national to be infected with the virus, which causes severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and—in some cases—unstoppable internal and external bleeding.
© 2014 AFP
