Could One Of These 4 Studies Be The Answer To Ebola?
The current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is the biggest and deadliest in the recorded history of the ravaging disease that kills between 60 and 90 percent of those infected, depending on the strain. World health leaders are working around the clock to contain both the spread of the disease and mounting public concern. After forty years of research, there is still no cure for Ebola, and researchers are frustrated by the slow pace of drug development. However, this isn’t to say that progress towards a working drug isn’t currently being made. Though they are still in early stages of research, four possible treatments from have been fast-tracked toward clinical study.
Mapp Biopharmaceuticals’ ZMapp
Mapp Biopharmaceuticals is a tiny company of only nine employees based out of San Diego. Their anti-Ebola treatment, ZMapp works to attack the virus directly while also boosting the immune system that is suppressed by the virus. This compound is manufactured using tobacco leaves, which serve as a “miniature manufacturing unit” and make the molecules easily recognizable to the human immune system. These compounds have been tested and found effective in animal studies. In fact, early this week, access to the drug was expedited; it was manufactured by Kentucky BioProcessing and subsequently used to treat two American health workers infected with Ebola. Both patients seem to be improving, Business Week reports.
Tekmira’s TKM-EBOLA
Canadian company Tekmira has been working on an anti-Ebola drug for four years in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense. TKM-Ebola uses “Lipid Nanoparticle” technology and has proven to be 100 percent effective in animal studies when injected early in the course of infection. The research advanced to human studies in January.
A press release from Tekmira reports that “TKM-Ebola is currently an unapproved agent and the regulatory framework to support its use in Africa has not been established at this time.”
NanoViricides
NanoViricides hopes to develop an injectable treatment for Ebola similar to one already developed to battle influenza, FluCide, which has proven substantially effective in animal studies. According to the CEO, Dr. Eugene Seymore, the company already has the cash in hand to proceed with studies of an anti-Ebola drug and has drug manufacturing facilities available for after it is developed.
“We believe that with our ‘intelligent nanomachines’ approach we have the potential to develop superior therapeutics as compared to other approaches,” said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President of the Company.
Plasma of Survivors
The final potential treatment for Ebola involves blood transfusions with blood taken from Ebola-survivors. This method has been used effectively with other infectious diseases in the hopes that anti-bodies produced by survivors could help fight the infection in others.
This method has not been extensively tested with the Ebola virus due to the disease’s unpredictability and the low number of infected patients in previous outbreaks. Dr. Thomas Geisbert of the University of Texas warns that this approach is not “tried and true” and told NBC that his team’s efforts to try this method on monkeys did not work.
It’s important to note, however, that experimental drugs — as was the case with ZMapp — may be used under the “Compassionate Use” authorization when all other safer methods have failed. As the death toll from this horrific disease continues to climb in West Africa, nothing has been ruled out as health workers across the globe fight to find the cure.