Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Thursday said it would begin clinical trials of three possible treatments for Ebola in West Africa, December.
Trials will take place in Liberia and Guinea .
Two antiviral drugs to be tested — brincidofovir and favipiravir — have been highlighted by the World Health Organization as promising.
The studies will not use placebo groups and will involve only Ebola patients who give informed consent.
“We need to keep in mind that there is no guarantee that these therapies will be the miracle cure,” Annick Antierens, a doctor who coordinates MSF’s investigational partnerships, warned.
“But we need to do all we can to try the products available today to increase the chances of finding an effective treatment against Ebola,” she added.
The three trials will be led by different teams: Britain’s University of Oxford will lead one in Liberia, and the Dutch Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine and the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research will lead two others in Guinea.
First results will be available in February 2015.