New hope for stopping Ebola in its tracks

 

WASHINGTON -- Researchers are making headway with new drugs and vaccines that may help to contain the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.


     A team led by scientists from the Public Health Agency of Canada has announced promising results of tests on a much-hyped drug called ZMapp. The team administered the drug to 18 rhesus monkeys infected with Ebola, within five days of them contracting the virus. These monkeys recovered from their symptoms; three that were not given the drug died within eight days.

     The PHAC study group, which included scientists from the University of Texas and other institutions, published the findings in the online edition of the British science journal Nature. ZMapp is being developed by a U.S.-based bioventure in collaboration with a number of parties, including the PHAC.

     The strain of Ebola used in the animal tests is different from the type ripping through West Africa. Nevertheless, the scientists believe ZMapp can be effective for the West African type as well.
     ZMapp has so far produced mixed results in humans. An American doctor who was infected in Liberia smoothly recovered after being given the drug. A Liberian doctor who also received the treatment died.

Doses of prevention
Meanwhile, the U.S. National Institutes of Health will launch this week the first human clinical trials of a vaccine it has developed with major U.K. pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.
     The vaccine will be administered to 20 healthy adults at a U.S. facility. The plan is to hold trials in two West African countries -- Mali and Gambia -- and the U.K. as well.
     The NIH intends to conduct clinical tests of another vaccine developed by a Canadian drug company, too.

     Normally, authorities approve new drugs and vaccines only after their efficacy and safety have been confirmed through both animal tests and clinical trials on humans. The explosiveness of the Ebola outbreak, however, has made the World Health Organization willing to endorse remedies after animal tests alone.
     More than 3,000 people have been infected with Ebola in West Africa, and more than 1,500 of them have died. The WHO has warned that, eventually, infections could top 20,000.

     Senegal's health minister last Friday said that a young man who had come to the country from Guinea was infected with the virus, according to an Associated Press report. That makes Senegal the fifth West African country where Ebola has been found during the current epidemic.