US ask labs to ramp up production of experimental Ebola drug, Zmapp

Labs have been asked by US officials to submit plans for ramping up production of the experimental Ebola drug, Zmapp, supplies of which had run out, rt.com reported.

The drug had successfully treated medical workers infected with the virus, but had not been widely tested for safety.

The US Department of Health and Human Services, through its BARDA division, issued the order for mass production of the antiviral cocktail on Thursday.

According to Reuters three advanced biological laboratories had until 10 November to submit detailed plans with budgets and timetables.

The US government "is working with partners around the world as quickly as possible to advance the development of multiple vaccine and therapeutic candidates for clinical evaluation and future use in preventing or treating Ebola," BARDA director Robin Robinson said in a statement.

Efforts to ramp up ZMapp production capacity are underway at the Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing, composed of three separate labs - the Texas A&M Health Science Center in partnership with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Emergent Biosolutions in Maryland, and Novartis AG lab in North Carolina.

The US government had established three advanced labs in 2012 with $440 million in seed money. The labs are required to develop flexible manufacturing capabilities to allow them to produce counter-measures against chemical, biological, and other threats.

Meanwhile, authorities expanded their efforts Thursday to contact passengers who flew on two flights in the last week with a nurse had got the Ebola virus, Fox New said in a report to which AP contributed.

Amber Joy Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who had cared for the first US patient to die of the virus, flew on two Frontier Airlines flights between Dallas and Cleveland. Two days after she returned to work, she became the third confirmed case of Ebola in the US.

The 132 passengers on flight 1143 which flew from Cleveland to Dallas, have been asked by the Centers for Disease Control, to contact the agency as a precaution.

''Individuals who are determined to be at any potential risk will be actively monitored,'' the agency said in a statement Wednesday.

The airline was also reaching out to about 750 passengers on five flights on Tuesday who used the same plane on which Vinson flew, according to a statement by Frontier, Thursday night.

According to The Denver Post, the trips were flight 2042, Dallas to Cleveland; flight 1104, Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale; flight 1105, Fort Lauderdale to Cleveland; flight 1101, Cleveland to Atlanta; and flight 1100, Atlanta to Cleveland.