The Democratic Republic of Congo said Wednesday it has approved the use of five experimental Ebola treatments on patients suffering from the hemorrhagic fever, as drug companies and health workers scramble to use the current outbreak to help find a cure for the deadly virus.

The unlicensed drugs will be administered under research protocols at makeshift treatment centers in the remote Equateur Province, where an Ebola outbreak has killed 27 people since April, said Jessica Ilunga, a spokeswoman for Congo’s public-health ministry....