RTVE.es/EFE
experimental drug against Ebola has shown ZMapp 100% effective in the recovery of 18 infected primates with the virus, according to a study conducted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The researchers, who published their findings Friday in a special edition of the magazine Nature , given three doses of serum, at intervals of three days, copies of rhesus macaque with a similar to human physiology.
They all survived, although Some began treatment at an advanced stage of the disease , to five days after infection.
On the contrary, the three copies of the control group that received the drug died on the eighth day.
cocktail of three antibodies against Ebola
In the Ebola epidemic in West Africa that has caused more than 1,500 deaths, the drug being tested-a cocktail of three antibodies – has been administered several patients, including two Americans who recovered after receiving treatment.
It is unknown whether the serum had a decisive effect on these cures, given that 45% of those infected with the actual virus outbreak survive without the drug.
Two other patients treated with ZMapp have not survived, including the Spanish religious Miguel Pajares, although researchers believe that the lateness of the infection in these cases could be decisive.
Ready to use in humans in two years
So far there is no approved treatment or vaccine to combat Ebola, so controlling the epidemic has limited to palliative care and the creation of barriers to try to prevent further infections.
Gary Kobinger, pathologist Canadian public agency that has directed the experiments, said in press release the drug could be ready for human use within two years.
“Our role as a public research institution is not exposing a product” stressed Kobinger, who has advance that the owner prepares cocktail pharmaceutical clinical trials for early 2015.
Once “past security checkpoints,” said the pathologist, “the question will be to see how much the manufacture, where such Canada wants to buy 10,000 doses. “
” It is essential that human trials begin soon “
Researchers have used for the experiment a different strain of virus to which he is hitting several African countries, but Kobinger ensures that both are “comparable” and that preliminary data from other tests in development with the current strain are “similar, if not better”, which were released Friday.
The Belgian physician Peter Piot, a member of the team that in 1976 discovered the Ebola virus, said for his part that the Canadian study center is the “most compelling evidence yet that ZMapp could be effective in treating Ebola infection in humans “.
” It is essential that human trials will begin as soon as possible. The Ebola outbreak serves as a warning about the importance of invest in infrastructure and health systems . This disease can I control with good hygienic practices, which are often not implemented, “the director of the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London.
” I never thought that forty years after we discovered the first outbreak of Ebola disease lives continue robbing such a devastating scale, “said Piot.
In the current epidemic in West Africa, Ebola virus has infected so far to 3,069 people , of which 1,552 have died, according to the latest count by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Ebola, which is transmitted by direct contact with blood and body fluids of infected persons or animals, causing severe bleeding and can have a mortality rate of 90%.
This is the first time identified and confirmed Ebola epidemic in West Africa, as until now it had only produced in Central Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment