Anti-Ebola Drug ZMapp Makes Clean Sweep: 18 of 18 Monkeys Survive Infection 91
Scientific American reports, based on a study published today in Nature, that ZMapp, the drug that has been used to treat seven patients during the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, can completely protect monkeys against the virus, research has found. ... The drug — a cocktail of three purified immune proteins, or monoclonal antibodies, that target the Ebola virus — has been given to seven people: two US and three African health-care workers, a British nurse and a Spanish priest. The priest and a Liberian health-care worker who got the drug have since died. There is no way to tell whether ZMapp has been effective in the patients who survived, because they received the drug at different times during the course of their disease and received various levels of medical care.
NPR also has an interview with study lead Gary Kobinger, who says that (very cautious) human trials are in the works, and emphasizes the difficulites of producing the drug in quantity.
Re:Human Subjects (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it should be infected people.
Re:Main Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course considering the mess Liberia has been in for 20+ years this outbreak is relatively minor and only receiving attention due to sensationalism.
No, it's receiving a lot of attention because the outbreak is not contained to a small remote village as with previous outbreaks. It's not contained at this point (partly due to the lack of govt in these areas), and there is a significant population in danger. The fairly long incubation period of up to a few weeks means this could easily be carried back to major populated areas and spread like wildfire.
Somewhat Less Than 50 White People... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like The Onion got this one wrong.
Experts: Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away [theonion.com]
I suppose it's a commentary on the state of the world that The Onion is so often inadvertently right with their headlines.
Risk Management (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I'm all for getting as much Zmapp to patients as is possible. I think a lot of people are agreement on this.
But we also need to do something about the effed up process of the approval of drugs and vaccines for these deadly diseases.
I'm thinking specifically about the malaria vaccine that has been known to be effective since '96/'97, but which has been held up for extended testing trials by (IIRC) the British drug regulators, who again put a hold on it this spring because it might not be entirely effective in newborn infants.
Meanwhile two million children are dying every year from malaria. This is a really, really, really, screwed up situation, and we have an ethical obligation to do what we can to put an end to these processes.
Even if the latest delay is "only" three months, that's a half million kids or so. It's unconscionable how poor the risk management analysis is - the perfect can be the very, very deadly enemy of the good. And so can drug-agency bureaucrats.
Re: Good news everybody (Score:5, Insightful)
That isn't how evolution works. What you meant was genetically less fit to resist predation by lions and tigers before having a chance to breed if and only if lions and tigers are a significant cause of that species not being able to breed in comparison to other factors.
I, for one, don't give a shit about genetic fitness against Ebola. Thinking that somehow these people (or animals) "deserve" to be weeded out because they are "bad" in the sense there is something wrong with them is completely unfounded, and is nothing more than blaming the victim.
Or trolling.
Re:Human Subjects (Score:5, Insightful)
i read the fatality rate in this epidemic has been more around 40%.
The lowered lethality is actually a bad thing. It means people aren't getting as sick, are staying ambulatory longer, and are spreading the disease to more additional people. With a lethality rate of 90% a disease will likely burn out fast. At 40%, it has more time to spread, and can kill far more people in total. Despite the lower lethality, this outbreak has killed more than any other [wikipedia.org]. If the virus continues to adapt to human hosts, and the lethality falls to 10 or 20%, we are in big trouble.
Re:Risk Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps nothing would happen. That'd be great, but it's also a gamble. It's possible that the relaxed requirements mean a side-effect slips through unnoticed, causing as great or greater harm later in the future. It's unlikely, but it's possible, and it only takes one for everyone to panic. Probably the best example we have of what could happen is Thalidomide.
Re:Human Subjects (Score:4, Insightful)
"In reality, the worst case scenario now involves an immune host/carrier. "
Looks like in reality you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. Such a person/vector would be a pathologist's fucking wet dream to forming a vaccine against the disease in the first fucking place.
You watch too much TV.
You can't just find "patient 0", or "the primordial sample" as TNT's shitty show calls it, and then magically get a cure shat out.
You can't just find some schlub who's immune and magically figure out why and make a vaccine to immunize other people.