An Experts Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) decided today that it is medically ethical to administer unapproved drugs or vaccines of hitherto unknown effectiveness and possible side effects to experimental treatment or prevention of the deadly Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

The WHO announced that there is a moral obligation for  the evaluation of these experimental drugs and vaccines with the best possible clinical trials, seeing the circumstances.

The administration, however, requires “informed consent, freedom of choice, confidentiality, respect for man, maintaining dignity and community involvement”, said the WHO.

The commitee convened to discuss whether the various experimental drugs and vaccines prepared to tackle Ebola could be used in this epidemic, although not fully tested and approved.

The Commitee met after the decision to administer the experimental drug against Ebola, Zmapp, which is produced by American biotech company Mapp Biopharmaceutical, to two American volunteers of a humanitarian organization in Liberia, who were infected with the virus.