Nouboussi Nkenfack, Nelly M.2019-05-202019-05-202019-04-29https://hdl.handle.net/1794/24581Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: (2019). 20 p.The 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic was the most devastating Ebola outbreak in history which killed over 10,000 people. During the outbreak, the WHO led efforts to design the best method to test the potential treatments quickly. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were proposed as the best method, although many experts opposed their use, deeming them inappropriate in the context of an epidemic. Despite the long debates, RCTs were used to test the available treatments. This paper presents the arguments given in support of and against RCTs, and analyzes a few RCTs conducted to answer the following question: “were RCTs effective at helping researchers fight the epidemic?” This paper argues that RCTs were not the best approach for two reasons: the principle of equipoise requires that the available treatments be provided to patients; if RCTs were to be used, they should have begun earlier to ensure the validity of the findings.enCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USOther