Experimental Ebola Cure ~ Antibodies from Ebola patients

[exotix]

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Ebola Survivor Dr. Kent Brantly Donates Blood to Ashoka Mukpo

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebo...-mukpo-n220811


The first American flown back to the U.S. after contracting Ebola has donated blood to an NBC News freelance cameraman who was also diagnosed with the virus.

Photojournalist Ashoka Mukpo’sfamily told NBC News early Wednesday that Dr. Kent Brantly was contacted by the Nebraska Medical Center and asked to give plasma.

Experts hope the survivor’s antibodies will kick-start Mukpo's immune system.


Videos Inside

Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly testifies before a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington September 17.

[Captain Obvious]

This isn't news, it's been the strategy for months on how to combat ebola in West Africa, it's just not ready to roll out.

[waltky]

W. Africa Better Prepared to Contain Ebola...

W. Africa Better Prepared to Contain Future Ebola Outbreaks
May 29, 2016 — In exclusive VOA interview, WHO official says Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea now able to respond more quickly to emergencies because of upgrades to their surveillance, laboratory, health care systems

The World Health Organization’s Regional Director for Africa says West Africa is better prepared to tackle future outbreaks of Ebola. In an exclusive interview with VOA, Matshidiso Moeti says Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are now able to respond more quickly to emergencies because of upgrades to their surveillance, laboratory and health care systems. Moeti became head of WHO’s regional office for Africa in February 2015, at the height of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. As the World Health Organization’s chief troubleshooter in the region, she told VOA she knew she had to do whatever was necessary to stop the spread of this fatal disease. Ebola had killed more than 11,000 people in the three most heavily affected West African countries by the time WHO declared the transmission of the Ebola virus virtually over at the end of last year.

Warning of flare-ups

Although it acknowledged that the epidemic was no longer out of control, the WHO warned the countries to remain vigilant as flare-ups of the disease were likely to continue for some time. ”We have had a very prolonged last leg of getting to zero in this outbreak and we are not there yet,” said Moeti. But, she added Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea have greatly improved their ability to respond to Ebola and have proved this in their skillful management of the occasional flare-ups of the disease. “They have been able when they get an unexpected case in these last few months to be able to respond and detect it relatively early, follow-up the contacts and contain the spread. So, for me that is one of the best outcomes of this tragic situation in West Africa,” said Moeti.

A health worker takes the temperature of people to see if they might be infected by the Ebola virus inside the Ignace Deen government hospital in Conakry, Guinea

But, she cautioned that all the improvements made in infrastructure, in response systems, and in skills training must be sustained. This, she said required the continued support of the International community. Moeti stressed that the funding and expertise that had poured into West Africa during the Ebola epidemic must hold. “I am very hopeful that some of the commitments that were made by the donors during the time when these countries were talking about their recovery actually do materialize,” she said. She called this essential “to ensuring that the healthcare workers, the infrastructure, the laboratories, the commodities that are needed to be available on an ongoing basis are sustained.”

Heath emergency reforms

The World Health Assembly, which has just wrapped up its annual meeting, has approved reforms of the emergency health system. Moeti praised the underlying agreement by member States to provide the money needed to implement this system. She said WHO will be in a better position now to head-off crises before they become full blown. This, she said would prove to be a boon to African countries. This year’s World Health Assembly had a particularly packed agenda of 76 health issues to consider. The 3,500 delegates who attended the week-long meeting approved 10 new resolutions including the program on health emergencies.

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Cholera, Chikungunya Outbreaks Strain Kenya's Medical Services
May 27, 2016 — In what Doctors Without Borders is calling a first, simultaneous outbreaks of cholera and chikungunya are straining local health services in northeastern Kenya.

In Kenya’s Mandera County, 12 deaths from cholera have been reported since April, in an outbreak that has been ongoing for about 17 months, according to Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym, MSF. Almost 800 cases have been reported during this period, concentrated in Mandera township. “It is rather devastating in the sense also that, you know, it coincides with a parallel chikungunya outbreak,” said Liesbeth Aelbrecht, MSF’s Kenya country director. “For us as an organization, it’s a first, at least to see two large outbreaks coinciding.”

Mandera, Kenya

MSF said this is the sixth time in six months that it has deployed teams to assist with the cholera outbreak in the northeastern region. MSF said the Mandera Referral Hospital has been "overwhelmed" by cholera patients and expressed concern that health facilities will continue to struggle as chikungunya patients also seek treatment. Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne illness causing high fever, joint pain and headache, is affecting even medical personnel. MSF suspects about 80 percent of hospital staff are infected. Although mortality rates are usually low, it can take patients about a week to recover. Kenya’s Ministry of Health reports 260 suspected cases of chikungunya in the northeast, with seven confirmed by laboratory tests.

Aelbrecht urged a better government response at the local and national levels, saying greater investment in proper water and sanitation for the population is needed. Mandera county's minister of health, Ahmed Mohamed, said the government is doing the best it can, especially given Mandera’s proximity to both Ethiopia and Somalia. He said people traveling across the borders can carry diseases with them. “So, we’ve done quite a lot on our part,” said Mohamed, “but unfortunately, especially on the Somali side, there isn’t a strong health system that can be able to handle this kind of infection. So it is like we are fighting a battle where we don’t know where the head is.” The Kenyan Ministry of Health has reported more than 15,000 cholera cases nationwide since the outbreak began in late 2014.

http://www.voanews.com/content/chole...s/3349114.html

[waltky]

Ebola 'trojan horse' strategy to block virus' ability to invade human cells...

'Trojan Horse' Antibody Strategy Shows Promise Against Ebola Viruses
September 08, 2016 — Scientists have found a hidden weak spot shared by all five known types of the deadly Ebola virus and successfully targeted it with two antibodies that blocked its ability to invade human cells.

In early stage laboratory experiments published in the journal Science, the researchers developed a "Trojan horse" strategy that allows engineered antibodies to hitch a ride on Ebola to where the virus is most vulnerable before hitting it. "The success in co-opting the virus itself to dispatch a lethal weapon ... marks a turning point in development of smart therapeutics against infectious diseases," said M. Javad Aman, a scientist and president at the U.S. biotech firm Integrated BioTherapeutics who worked on the team. Although years of testing lie ahead before any fully approved treatment might be developed for Ebola patients, Aman said similar strategies could also be devised against several other viral and bacterial pathogens.

No approved treatments

Ebola is an extremely deadly and contagious disease for which there are currently no regulator-approved vaccines or treatments. A vast outbreak of the Zaire strain of the virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever, killed more than 11,000 people and infected around 29,000 in West Africa in 2014-15. Monoclonal antibodies, which bind to and neutralize specific pathogens and toxins, have emerged as the most promising treatments for Ebola. But a critical problem is that most antibody therapies — including the most promising experimental therapy, ZMapp — target only one specific Ebola virus. In this work, the research team found a way around this by targeting a weak spot — in the so-called lysosome of the cell — to where antibodies could hitch a ride on Ebola and deliver a punch that blocked the virus' exit and ability to replicate.

A health worker, center, takes the temperature of people to see if they might be infected by the Ebola virus inside the Ignace Deen government hospital in Conakry, Guinea

The strategy could eventually be developed for use in a range of other viruses, the scientists said, including cousins of Ebola such as Marburg, and other viral diseases such as dengue or Lassa. "It's impossible to predict where the next Ebola virus outbreak will occur or which virus will cause it," said Jon Lai of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, who co-led the work. "We hope that further testing in nonhuman primates will establish our antibodies as safe and effective for treating those exposed to any Ebola virus."

http://www.voanews.com/a/trojan-hors...a/3499928.html

[waltky]

Possible cure for all five known Ebola viruses discovered...


Scientists Discover Human Antibodies to Fight Ebola Virus
May 18, 2017 - Scientists have discovered a possible cure for all five known Ebola viruses, one of which ravaged West Africa in recent years.

The so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies were discovered in the blood of a survivor of the West African epidemic, which ran from late 2013 to mid-2016. The deadly virus killed more than 11,000 people of the nearly 29,000 who became infected in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Ebola got its name from the first documented outbreak, which occurred along the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, in 1976. Since then, there have been two dozen outbreaks of Ebola in Africa, including a current one that has infected nine people in the DRC. Three people have died.

A health worker takes the temperature of people to see whether they might be infected by the Ebola virus inside the Ignace Deen government hospital in Conakry, Guinea

Kartik Chandran, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, helped identify the antibodies, which were described online in the journal Cell. He is optimistic that the antibodies can be used as a single therapy to treat all Ebola viruses. "Based on the nonhuman primate studies that are ongoing, and given the fact that they are pretty predictive, I would be optimistic that they could be used to protect people and reverse disease," Chandran said.


350 antibodies isolated


Researchers isolated about 350 antibodies from the human blood sample, two of which showed promise in neutralizing three viruses in tissue culture. The antibodies work by interfering with a process that the pathogen uses to infect and multiply inside cells. The drug company Mapp Pharmaceutical Inc. is now testing the antibodies in monkeys to make sure they are safe and effective. A forerunner of the experimental drug, called Zmapp, was in the experimental stages when it was pressed into service during the last epidemic. Zmapp is a combination of cloned antibodies discovered in mice that enlist the body's natural immune system to fight infection. If given up to five days after symptoms appear, it can cure the disease.


The problem, Chandran said, is Zmapp is not terribly specific and works to neutralize only Ebola Zaire, one of the five known viruses. He said the broadly neutralizing human antibodies attack and destroy all of the viruses. It took scientists just six months to discover the antibodies, according to Chandran, "so this is really incredibly fast and incredibly gratifying. And we are hoping that things will continue at this pace and that in very short order we will be in a position to be able to test these things in people." While the broadly neutralizing antibodies are being developed as a treatment, Chandran envisions using them in a vaccine that can be given ahead of an Ebola outbreak to guard against infection.


http://www.voanews.com/a/scientists-...s/3860494.html

[waltky]

WHO released $623,000 from its emergency fund to finance the action...


WHO: Rapid Action Brings Quick End to Marburg Outbreak in Uganda
December 08, 2017 — Rapid action prevented the spread of the deadly Marburg virus just weeks after it was first detected in Uganda, the World Health Organization reports.

The first case of the disease in the African country was confirmed October 17, when laboratory tests found the death of a 50-year-old woman was due to the Marburg virus. "Within 24 hours of being informed by the Ugandan health authorities in early October, WHO deployed a rapid response team to the remote mountainous area and we have financed the immediate support and scaled up the response in Uganda and Kenya," said World Health Organization spokeswoman, Fadela Chaib. WHO released $623,000 from its emergency fund to finance the action.

A medical worker wearing full protective equipment decontaminates a cup used by a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg virus, a hemorrhagic fever from the same family as Ebola, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya

Marburg is a highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as that of Ebola. It can be transmitted from person to person by bodily fluids, and can cause bleeding, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms. This was the fifth outbreak of Marburg virus in a decade, and lessons have been learned from those outbreaks, as well as from the West African Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people. "Marburg is very infectious," Chaib said. "It was also important to trace all the contacts of this first case and to follow them for a period of 21 days, plus 21 days just to make sure that there [are] no other cases being detected."


WHO reports three people died over the course of the outbreak, which affected two districts in eastern Uganda near the Kenyan border. Surveillance and contact tracing on the Kenyan side of the border by the Kenyan Ministry of Health and its partners also prevented cross-border spread of the disease, according to WHO.


https://www.voanews.com/a/rapid-acti...o/4155679.html

[waltky]

Congo Ebola Virus Moves From Rural Area to Urban One...

DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city
17 May`18 - The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread from the countryside into a city, prompting fears that the disease will be increasingly hard to control.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga confirmed a case in Mbandaka, a city of a million about 130km (80 miles) from where the first cases were confirmed. The city is a major transportation hub with routes to the capital Kinshasa. At least 44 people are thought to have been infected with ebola and 23 deaths are being investigated. Ebola is a serious infectious illness that causes internal bleeding and often proves fatal. It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious.

Twenty-three people are known to have died

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called an emergency meeting of experts to talk about the risk that Ebola might spread beyond DR Congo. It will meet on Friday to decide whether to declare an international public health emergency which would trigger a larger global response, like in the case of the 2014-16 Western African Ebola outbreak and the 2016 Zika virus in Latin America.


Why is the spread to a city such a worry?


The 2014-16 West Africa outbreak, which killed 11,300 people, was particularly deadly because it spread to the capital cities of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Senior WHO official Peter Salama said the spread to Mbandaka meant there was the potential for an "explosive increase" in cases. "This is a major development in the outbreak," he told the BBC. "We have urban Ebola, which is a very different animal from rural Ebola. The potential for an explosive increase in cases is now there."

Mr Salama, the WHO's deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response, said Mbandaka's location on the Congo river, widely used for transportation, raised the prospect of Ebola spreading to surrounding countries such as Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic as well as downstream to Kinshasa, a city of 10 million people. "This puts a whole different lens on this outbreak and gives us increased urgency to move very quickly into Mbandaka to stop this new first sign of transmission," he said.


What is being done to contain the outbreak?

See also:


Practices in Place to Contain Ebola Outbreak in DRC
May 17, 2018 | WASHINGTON — The deadly Ebola virus has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but things are very different this time in the speed of response and tools available for this outbreak versus the one that hit West Africa in 2014-2016. For one, the World Health Organization is already involved.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO, led a delegation to the DRC May 13 that included Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, and Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response. Tedros and the others went to personally evaluate the response to the country’s Ebola outbreak and meet with President Joseph Kabila and the country’s minister of health.

A health worker prepares to take off protective clothing after visiting the isolation ward at Bikoro hospital, which received a new suspected Ebola case, in Bikoro, Democratic Republic of Congo

Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at a Washington research organization, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, conducted research on the West African outbreak that claimed more than 11,000 lives and is carefully watching the current outbreak in a rural area of northeast DRC. “I thought it was very commendable and a great sign of the change of outlook that Dr. Tedros was personally there on the ground, and that was very important,” Morrison said. “It rallies the troops, it shows determination and commitment and speed.”


Rapid response


One of the changes from the 2014 outbreak is that the WHO has an emergency fund to get experts in place to start to contain the outbreak. A team left Wednesday for the country’s rural northwest. The first batch of experimental Ebola vaccines arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo May 16 and will be administered to health care workers and those exposed to the virus in days. Merck, the pharmaceutical giant that makes the vaccine, has promised the WHO to supply whatever is needed for this outbreak. Although the vaccine is not licensed, and therefore is called “experimental,” it was proved safe and effective in West Africa.

Congolese Health Ministry officials carry the first batch of experimental Ebola vaccines in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

A multidisciplinary team, including WHO experts and staff from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), has been in Bikoro, where the outbreak first occurred May 10. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has personnel in place. In addition, the World Food Program is providing an air bridge to get the vaccine and supplies to the affected region with several flights a day. Treatment centers that isolate the sick are in place, as are hand-washing stations containing a solution of bleach and water to kill the virus.


'A lot of learning'

[Peter1469]

Airlines should avoid DR Congo until this is over.


Quarantine the country.

Congo Ebola Virus Moves From Rural Area to Urban One...

DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city
17 May`18 - The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread from the countryside into a city, prompting fears that the disease will be increasingly hard to control.



See also:


Practices in Place to Contain Ebola Outbreak in DRC
May 17, 2018 | WASHINGTON — The deadly Ebola virus has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but things are very different this time in the speed of response and tools available for this outbreak versus the one that hit West Africa in 2014-2016. For one, the World Health Organization is already involved.

[Peter1469]

Airlines should avoid DR Congo until this is over.


Quarantine the country.

Now an Ebola case turned up in Mbandaka, Congo, at city of 1.2M. This could be the $#@! hitting the fan.

Congo has confirmed a case of Ebola in Mbandaka, a city of 1.2 million, marking the first urban case in the latest outbreak, which is now the most serious since the epidemic that raged across West Africa between 2014 and 2016.

Ebola is much harder to contain in urban areas, so this development compounds the risk of contagion. The World Health Organization’s lead response official called the new confirmed case “a game changer.”


Previously, confirmed cases had been limited to a remote area more than 100 miles south of Mbandaka, in the rain forest of Congo’s Equateur province. The new, urban case was among 14 confirmed cases of the current outbreak, according to Congo Health Ministry figures reported by the Associated Press; 21 others were probable and 10 others were suspected, bringing the total of potential cases to 45. The death toll stood at 25.


“This is a major development in the outbreak,” said Peter Salama, the WHO’s deputy director general of emergency preparedness and response. “We have urban Ebola, which is a very different animal from rural Ebola. The potential for an explosive increase in cases is now there.”


Given the signs of a worsening outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has assembled a team that is ready to deploy to Congo once the WHO finishes assessing its needs and the logistical challenges of transporting experts into the remote outbreak locations.


“Depending on the need, we may be preparing for a longer term,” said CDC epidemiologist Pierre Rollin, an Ebola expert who was in West Africa during the 2014 epidemic. The agency has multiple teams preparing, with each shift in the Congo expected to last four to six weeks.

[donttread]

Looks like another case of a promising cure or treatment that just drops off the radar