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* Liberia to treat infected doctors with trial drug ZMapp
* Spanish priest who received ZMapp dies in Madrid
* No licensed treatments or vaccines for Ebola
* Ghana delays academic year for tertiary institutions (Adds Canada to donate Ebola vaccine)
By Kate Kelland and Stephanie Nebehay
LONDON/GENEVA, Aug 12 (Reuters) - People infected in theWest African Ebola outbreak can be offered untested drugs, theWorld Health Organisation said on Tuesday, but the scarcity ofsupplies has raised questions about who gets priority access totreatment.
Liberia said it planned to treat two infected doctors withan unproven Ebola medicine called ZMapp. They would become thefirst Africans to receive the drug, which has been given to aSpanish priest who later died and two U.S. aid workers.
The outbreak is the world's largest and deadliest and theU.N. agency last week declared it an international healthemergency. The WHO has appealed for funds and medical staff tosupplement health care in one of the poorest regions in theworld.
So far, 1,013 people have died, the vast majority in Guinea,Liberia and Sierra Leone. Two have died in Nigeria.
The suffering has been exacerbated by health services thatare struggling to cope.
On Tuesday, Liberian Ceceilia Gbelley lay on the grass amonga group of seven outside an Ebola treatment centre at Monrovia'sElwa hospital because there was no space for them inside. Allsaid they feared they might have the disease.
"I'm very weak. My chest is burning," said Gbelley, who hadnursed her aunt while she vomited blood and showed othersymptoms of the virus. The aunt died and Gbelley then fell ill.She said she rode to the hospital in a shared taxi.
In a sign of the desperation for even experimental medicineas the death toll mounts, Twitter users in West Africa, whereEbola is killing around 60 percent of patients who becomeinfected, created the #GiveUsTheSerum hashtag.
There are no licensed treatments or vaccines for Ebola, acontagious haemorrhagic disease, but several biotech companiesand research teams have been working on potential drugs.
The WHO's panel of medical ethicists said severalexperimental drugs had passed the laboratory and animal studyphases of development and should be fast-tracked into clinicaltrials and made available for compassionate use.
"There was unanimous agreement among the experts that in thespecial circumstances of this Ebola outbreak it is ethical tooffer unregistered interventions as potential treatments orprevention," the WHO's assistant director general Marie-PauleKieny said after an ethics panel published its guidance.
The WHO meeting was called after ZMapp, made by U.S. biotechcompany Mapp Biopharmaceutical, was given to the two U.S. aidworkers infected in Liberia. Kieny said she had heard reportsthat the treatment had a swift and dramatic effect on them.
WHO said only around 10 to 12 doses of the drug have beenmade. Liberia was preparing to treat the two Liberian doctorswith ZMapp after U.S. authorities approved itsexport.
On Tuesday, Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose saidCanada would donate 800 to 1,000 doses of an experimental Ebolavaccine developed in its government lab to the WHO for use inWest Africa.
"Our government is committed to doing everything we can tosupport our international partners, including providing staff toassist with the outbreak response, funding and access to ourexperimental vaccine," Ambrose said in a statement.
Canada owns a small quantity of the vaccine and would needfour to six months to make a large quantity.
BORDER CONTROLS
The 75-year-old priest, who the Health Ministry said wasalso being treated with ZMapp, died in hospital in Madrid onTuesday. He contracted Ebola in Liberia while working for anon-governmental organisation. It was unclear whether his deathshed any light on the efficacy of the drug.
Despite the stir caused by ZMapp, the WHO has saidpreventive public health measures are crucial to curbing theoutbreak.
"Decisions to seal off the hot zone of disease transmission,that is, the area where the borders of Guinea, Liberia, andSierra Leone intersect, are critical for stopping thereinfection of areas via the cross-border movement of people,"WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in Geneva.
The ethics panel said it was likely the first tests of thesedrugs in humans would be conducted over the next two to fourmonths, but cautioned that even after that, and if the trialsproved successful, supplies would be limited.
Companies with possible treatments include TekmiraPharmaceuticals, Biocryst Pharmaceuticals andSiga Technologies.
GlaxoSmithKline and U.S. scientists at the NationalInstitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases hope to start aclinical trial of an experimental Ebola vaccine as soon as nextmonth, after promising test results in primates.
Another experimental vaccine from Johnson & Johnson's Crucell unit should enter Phase I clinical trials inlate 2015 or early 2016, while Profectus Biosciences is alsoworking with U.S. scientists on another preclinical vaccine.
But with the long lead times and no sign of an end to theoutbreak, authorities have been taking their own emergencymeasures to try to contain it.
Ivory Coast, the economic powerhouse of French-speaking WestAfrica, on Monday banned air travellers from the three worst-hitcountries and ordered its flagship carrier Air Cote d'Ivoire tocease flights to and from them.
Ivory Coast has not registered any cases but is seen asvulnerable given its shared borders with Guinea and Liberia.
Ghana's government said the start of the academic year wouldbe delayed for at least two weeks for all tertiary institutionsto allow Ebola screening measures to be put in place.
Guinea and Sierra Leone have been ordered by theConfederation of African Football to move their African NationsCup soccer qualifiers next month. (Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London, ClairMacDougall in Monrovia, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, Teresa Larraz inMadrid, Kwasi Kpodo in Accra, Jenny Clover in Kigali and RodNickel in Winnipeg; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing byAlison Williams, Toni Reinhold)
