Ebola Cure Delayed by Drug Industry’s Drive for Profit, W.H.O. Leader Says

The leader of the World Health Organization criticized the drug industry on Monday, saying that the drive for profit was one reason no cure had yet been found for Ebola.

In a speech at a regional conference in Cotonou, Benin, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the organization, also decried the glaring absence of effective public health systems in the worst-affected countries.

At least 13,567 people are known to have contracted the Ebola virus in the latest outbreak, and 4,951 have died, according to the latest data on the W.H.O. website, which was updated on Friday. All but a few of the cases have been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Dr. Chan said her organization had long warned of the consequences of greed in drug development and of neglect in public health.

In the midst of the Ebola crisis, she said, these “two W.H.O. arguments that have fallen on deaf ears for decades are now out there with consequences that all the world can see, every day, on prime-time TV news.”

The Ebola virus was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire, in 1976. But because it was confined to impoverished African countries, Dr. Chan said, there was no incentive to develop a vaccine until this year, when Ebola became a broader threat.

“A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay,” she said. “W.H.O. has been trying to make this issue visible for ages. Now people can see for themselves.”

Dr. Chan reiterated her contention that the Ebola crisis “is the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times.”

Efforts to find a cure have been stepped up in recent months as the disease has spread, with a small outbreak in Nigeria and isolated cases in Mali, Senegal, Spain and the United States. At an emergency meeting in September, the United Nations Security Council declared the Ebola crisis a threat to international security.

Officials at the W.H.O. and at other public health authorities reported on Oct. 24 that they hoped to begin trials of vaccines as early as December, and that it should be known by April whether they are effective.