--- title: Ebola: WHO Says Stop The Ebola-Drug Sensationalism and Fake Cures description: WHO says there's too much hype for unproven treatments, and too many people claiming to have cures on social media canonical: https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-15T15:50:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:53.166Z article:section: Health og:title: Stop the Ebola-Drug Sensationalism and Fake Cures, WHO Says og:description: WHO says there's too much hype for unproven treatments, and too many people claiming to have cures on social media og:url: https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Stop the Ebola-Drug Sensationalism and Fake Cures, WHO Says twitter:description: WHO says there's too much hype for unproven treatments, and too many people claiming to have cures on social media twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Fake Cures and Ebola-Drug Sensationalism Need to Stop, WHO Says > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=33341a5f-a88d-4bf9-a295-fc7516c98092&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8) (2:32)  _Published 2014-08-13. Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 15, 2014 3:50 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 15, 2014 3:50 PM UTC “Recent intense media coverage of experimental medicines and vaccines is creating some unrealistic expectations, especially in an emotional climate of intense fear,” the World Health Organization (WHO) wrote in a statement sent to the media on Friday. Public fear and anxiety of Ebola is understandable, the WHO says, since the disease has no known cure or vaccine. But the organization warns that there needs to be more reason when it comes to fervor over experimental drugs that are in very limited supply. The WHO says that the public needs to understand that the majority of treatments available are not approved, and have not been tested in humans. One of the more disturbing outcomes to come out of the Ebola treatment fervor are fraudulent cure claims on social media. “All rumors of any other effective products or practices are false. Their use can be dangerous. In Nigeria, for example, at least two people have died after drinking salt water, \[which was\] rumored to be protective,” the WHO writes. Twitter is full of individuals claiming to know of Ebola “cures,” which the WHO is trying to combat, like the one below: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [put out a warning letter to consumers on ](http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm410086.htm?source=govdelivery&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fsource=govdelivery)Thursday about products claiming to treat Ebola. “Since the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa, the FDA has seen and received consumer complaints about a variety of products claiming to either prevent the Ebola virus or treat the infection,” the letter says. “There are currently no FDA-approved vaccines or drugs to prevent or treat Ebola.” Earlier this week, a WHO panel deemed it ethical to use experimental drugs and vaccines during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but it is still developing use guidelines from a panel of experts. The WHO says the Canadian government is donating doses of an experimental vaccine, adding that “a fully tested and licensed vaccine is not expected before 2015,” WHO says. Recent numbers for Ebola continue to rise. The latest case numbers from WHO put the number of cases at 1,975 and deaths at 1,069\. The WHO reports that there have been no new cases of Ebola detected so far in Nigeria, which is the most recent country to have a small cluster of the disease. The WHO says it is in the process of scaling up a massive international response. The CDC is currently tracking cases to prevent further infections, and the World Food Programme is delivering food to over one million people currently quarantined in zones where the borders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone meet. ## Transcript This Ebola outbreak is unprecedented. This is definitely a marathon and not a sprint. The bugs have evolved. The outbreak has gotten bigger. We are only as strong as the weakest link, and we have learned from Ebola that West Africa was a very weak link. [ MUSIC ] There's small clinics, these are like one room places where sick people might go in their house with maybe an auxiliary nurse as some one who has a little bit of medical training, but defiantly not the same standards that we would have here in the US. We're facing 3 main threats. The first is the threat of new organisms. It was coming and spreading in different places. The second is drug- resistant bacteria, and the third are intentionally created organisms. What we do in an outbreak response is continuously see how can we make it better. The exercises we've gone through both, re- evaluating our own protocols but also understanding what the public and governmental responses are has really helped us understand. How to take care of these patients in the larger context of our healthcare systems. And, those who are in the building, I would urge you to come down to either the ops team room, or the, When designing a unit that is designed to accept patients with serious communicable diseases, like Ebola, there are ways to design a unit so that it's function. Functional. Any hospital that can isolate a patient in a single patient room with a bathroom and can follow our infection control recommendations is capable of safely caring for a patient with Ebola. And we've tried to encourage every single hospital in the country to have an antibiotic stewardship program to improve antibiotic prescribing practices. There is a concern about fatigue as we go on that, the CDC other groups have sort of ramping up now to try to surge resources into the area. What we're also realizing is, we need to be able to maintain that surge for many months to keep the pressure on to completely control the outbreak. Time will tell in the next few weeks if we can start to see those numbers going in the right direction. Fewer new cases each day or each week. The single most important thing to understand about protecting Americans from Ebola is that can best be done by stopping it at the source in Africa. Its normal to be scared of something as deadly as Ebola and for the general public I really hope we can never let our fear undermine our compassion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/"},"headline":"Fake Cures and Ebola-Drug Sensationalism Need to Stop, WHO Says","datePublished":"2014-08-15T15:50:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:53.166Z","description":"WHO says there's too much hype for unproven treatments, and too many people claiming to have cures on social media","url":"https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/","keywords":["Infectious Disease","CDC","Sierra Leone","WHO","Vaccines","Nigeria","ebola","Guinea","Liberia","Ebola outbreak"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/infectious-disease/","name":"Infectious Disease"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/","name":"Fake Cures and Ebola-Drug Sensationalism Need to Stop, WHO Says"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","description":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/G194AmTC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-13T23:41:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3117313/fake-cures-and-ebola-drug-sensationalism-need-to-stop-who-says/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```