Ebola-infected Americans show signs of recovery after experimental 'cocktail'
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Version 0 of 1. Two American aid workers infected with Ebola have shown signs of recovery after receiving a “cocktail” of experimental drugs manufactured by a Californian and a Toronto-based biotech firm. Nancy Writebol, 59, was wheeled from an ambulance to an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on Tuesday. Her colleague, Dr Kent Brantly, 33, arrived two days earlier in markedly better condition, walking under his own power from the ambulance to the isolation unit. Both wore protective suits. The drugs used to treat Writebol and Brantly were developed by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical and Canada’s Defyrus and given to both in Liberia before their return to the US. Ebola, which spreads via the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person, has a fatality rate of up to 90%, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). On Wednesday, WHO said the death toll from the latest, and largest, outbreak had reached 932 with deaths reported in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone and that more than 1,600 people infected. The Americans received the drugs after Samaritan’s Purse, for which Brantly was working, contacted the officials with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who are in Liberia to discuss various experimental treatments. What is so far unknown is whether they are recovering on their own, as others who have survived Ebola have done, or as a result of the treatment. “Every medicine has risks and benefits,” CDC Director Tom Frieden told the Associated Press. “Until we do a study, we don’t know if it helps, if it hurts, or if it doesn’t make any difference.” The treatment, which combines Mapp’s drug, ZMapp and ZMAb from Defyrus, is one of several currently being developed to tackle Ebola. It has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and had previously only been tested on monkeys. ZMapp is manufactured in Nicotiana plants, the genus that includes tobacco plants. In a statement Mapp said very little of the drug is available and they are “cooperating with appropriate government agencies to increase production as quickly as possible”. “Any decision to use an experimental drug in a patient would be a decision made by the treating physician under the regulatory guidelines of the FDA,” the company said in a statement. In August last year Dr Larry Zeitlin, president of Mapp Biopharmaceutical, and James Pettitt, of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, published a report on an experimental Ebola treatment that protected 100% of non-human primates when given one hour after Ebola exposure. According to the report in Science Translational Medicine 43% of infected monkeys recovered after receiving the treatment 104 to 120 hours after infection – when they had developed measurable symptoms of disease. The treatment, dubbed MB-003, is a “cocktail” of monoclonal antibodies, which are designed to bind to and inactivate the virus. Pettitt said the antibodies recognized infected cells and triggered the immune system to kill them off. No side effects of the antibodies were observed in the surviving animals. In March Mapp was one of 15 organisations awarded $28m by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a new centre for excellence to find an antibody “cocktail” to fight the Ebola virus. The project is be led by Erica Ollmann Saphire, professor at the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), one of the world’s largest not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. Mapp and Defyrus are working with LeafBio of San Diego, the US government and the Public Health Agency of Canada on development of its drug. Family members for Writebol and Brantly say their conditions have improved. “A week ago we were thinking about making funeral arrangements for Nancy,” her husband, David Writebol, said in a statement read by SIM USA president Bruce Johnson. “Now we have a real reason to be hopeful.” Brantly’s wife, Amber, said he is in good spirits. “I have been able to see Kent every day, and he continues to improve,” she said in a statement. |