Ebola Virus Outbreak 2014: News Update & Symptoms—Possible Cure Found As Infection Spreads to Senegal
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As conditions in West Africa intensify, the current Ebola epidemic reaches new records, as the World Health Organization (WHO) reports 500 new viral infections that have now reached as far as Senegal.
Known as "Hemorrhagic Fever" for the final stages of the viral infection, Ebola has proven to be an extremely complex and lethal pathogen, as bodies now line the streets of nations in Africa's western provinces. Though to have originated from the consumption of African bushmeat, i.e. infected monkeys, Ebola carries similar origins to the global killer HIV and is even symptomatically worse. Transmittable by blood or mucosal secretions, Ebola has spread in the unsanitary conditions of West Africa as family members dispose of infected bodies on the streets of major cities, causing researchers to fear that given time the virus may mutate into a pathogen transmitted through the air.
Attempting to contain the virus and treat patients with experimental drugs, it appears that many efforts on behalf of West African governments have not proven effective as the WHO reported this morning, Aug. 29 that the virus has now reached its 5th country-Senegal.
"The situation is worsening in Liberia and Sierra Leone" WHO spokespersons said in an official report. "There are serious problems with case management, and infection prevention and control."
"This [current Ebola infection] far outstrips any historic Ebola outbreak in numbers; the largest outbreak in the past was about 400 cases."
More than seven-fold past records, the current infection has spread to over 3,069 individuals and has killed 1,552-a devastating situation that does not even show the full strength of the virus, whose typical prognosis is roughly 90% incidence of fatality after becoming infected.
Once infected, the symptomatic stages of Ebola appear swiftly and quickly escalate from simple flu-like symptoms all the way to hemorrhagic death, as individuals bleed out from their many open wounds. The hemorrhagic, bleed stage, of the Ebola infection typically begins 5 to 7 days after infection, and begins with vomiting/urinating blood and subcutaneous bleeding, underneath the skin and into organs like the eyes.
While researchers worldwide attempt to tackle the feat of finding a treatment or a cure for the difficult filovirus, which unlike HIV does not need to wait for immune systems to be compromised before fully infecting an individual, news came today that a possible cure may be available.
Releasing their results this morning, Aug. 29, in the journal Nature, Gary P. Kobinger of the Canadian Public Health Agency and a small team from San Diego-based biotech company MappBio have confirmed that in non-human trials early last April that 18 infected macaque monkeys fully recovered even after 5 days of severe symptoms already entering the hemorrhagic phase.
The experimental drug they have named ZMapp was originally tested against another strain of Ebola, differing slightly from the current strain causing the epidemic in West Africa, however, Kobinger assures that the cloned antibodies at the heart of the medication appear to recognize and bind to both strains of the virus. In preliminary tests of the medicine against the circulating strain, Kobinger says that ZMapp "performed as well, if not better" than it did on the previously studied strain of the virus.
"The evidence presented here suggests that ZMapp offers the best option of the experimental therapeutics currently in development for treating EBO-V-infected patients" Kobinger says. "We hope that initial safety tests in humans will be undertaken soon, preferably within the next few months, to enable the compassionate use of ZMapp as soon as possible."
While research worldwide is being expedited and intensified so that a cure can effectively be found soon to treat the ever-escalating number of infections, Kobinger is hopeful that ZMapp will have clinical applications soon, as he says that the progression of the Ebola infection in the macaques "appears to be extremely close to what we think is happening in humans."
