Clinical trials of new Ebola drugs to start in December One of the trials is being by staff from Oxford University, who are using the antiviral drug brincidofovir, which inhibits a virus's ability to multiply. Up to 140 consenting patients will take the tablets twice a week over a two week period, in a bid to reduce Ebola's current mortality rate of between 50 and 80 per cent. Meanwhile, in Gueckedou in Guinea - the centre of the original outbreak - the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research will experiment with another antiviral drug, favipiravir. Professor Peter Horby, the chief investigator with International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium, said: "Conducting clinical trials of investigational drugs in the midst of a humanitarian crisis is a new experience for all of us, but we are determined not to fail the people of west Africa." Another trial, conducted by the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine at an Ebola treatment clinic in the Guinean capital, Conakry, will take place using blood and plasma products developed from the blood of Ebola survivors, whose antibodies were able to fight off the infection. "This is an unprecedented international partnership which represents hope for patients to finally get a real treatment against a disease that today kills between 50 and 80 per cent of those infected," said Dr Annick Antierens, who coordinates the investigational partnerships for MSF. The first trials are expected to get under next month, with initial results available by February. At present, those treating Ebola victims in west Africa are able to do little other than alleviate the symptoms, which include chronic vomiting and diarrhoea.