Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <br /> <div class="caption full-width" style="clear: both; float: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">     <img alt="Ebola virus" height="351" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77267000/jpg/_77267254_c0215902-coloured_tem_of_the_ebola_virus-spl.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; position: relative;" width="624" />A</span></div> <div class="embedded-hyper" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px -160px 0px 16px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 144px;"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28980153#story_continues_1" style="font-weight: bold; left: -5000px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Continue reading the main story</span></span></a><div class="hyperpuff"> <h2 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 12px 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28754546" style="display: block; margin-bottom: -13px; margin-top: -13px; padding: 13px 8px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; z-index: 1;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ebola outbreak</span></span></a></h2> <ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;"> <li style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: auto;"><a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28940025" rel="published-1409096157259" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">How to avoid Ebola</span></a></li> <li style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: auto;"><a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28852352" rel="published-1408497066553" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">Doctor's report</span></a></li> <li style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: auto;"><a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26835233" rel="published-1396365946570" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">Why so dangerous?</span></a></li> <li style="background-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: auto;"><a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28865434" rel="published-1408575780579" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">Economic 'devastation'</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="clear: left; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The only clinical trial data on the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp shows it is 100% effective in monkey studies, even in later stages of the infection.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The researchers, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13777" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">publishing their data in Nature</a>, said it was a "very important step forward".</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Yet the limited supplies will not help the 20,000 people predicted to be infected during the outbreak in West Africa.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And two out of seven people given the drug, have later died from the disease.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">ZMapp has been dubbed the "secret serum" as it is still in the experimental stages of drug development with, until now, no public data on effectiveness.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Doctors have turned to it as there is no cure for Ebola, which has killed more than 1,500 people since it started in Guinea.</span></div> <span class="cross-head" style="display: block; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Cocktail</span></span><br /> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Researchers have been investigating different combinations of antibodies, a part of the immune system which binds to viruses, as a therapy.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Previous combinations have shown some effectiveness in animal studies. ZMapp is the latest cocktail and contains three antibodies.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Trials on 18 rhesus macaques infected with Ebola showed 100% survival.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This included animals given the drug up to five days after infection. For the monkeys this would be a relatively late stage in the infection, around three days before it becomes fatal.</span></div> <div class="caption full-width" style="clear: both; float: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="William Pooley" height="351" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77157000/jpg/_77157526_pooley.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; position: relative;" width="624" /></span><span style="display: block; width: 624px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">William Pooley, from the UK, has been given the ZMapp drug</span></span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Scientists say this is significant as previous therapies needed to be given before symptoms even appeared.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One of the researchers, Dr Gary Kobinger from the Public Health Agency of Canada, said this was a huge step up from previous antibody combinations.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"The level of improvement was beyond my own expectation, I was quite surprised that the best combination would rescue animals as far as day five, it was fantastic news.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"What was very exceptional is that we could rescue some of the animals that had advanced disease."</span></div> <span class="cross-head" style="display: block; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Human implications?</span></span><br /> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">However, there is always caution when interpreting the implications for humans from animal data.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A Liberian doctor, one of three taking the drug in the country, and a Spanish priest both died from the infection despite ZMapp treatment.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">William Pooley, the first Briton to contract Ebola during this outbreak, has been given the experimental drug ZMapp as were two US doctors who recovered.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The course of the infection is slower in humans than macaques so it has been cautiously estimated that ZMapp may be effective as late as day nine or 11 after infection.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But Dr Kobinger said: "We know there is a point of no return where there is too much damage to major organs, so there's a limit."</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The group wants to start clinical trials in people to truly assess the effectiveness of the drug.</span></div> <div class="caption full-width" style="clear: both; float: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="Ebola health workers in Liberia" height="351" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/77263000/jpg/_77263861_454204690.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; position: relative;" width="624" /></span><span style="display: block; width: 624px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The drug is unlikely to help the 20,000 people expected to be infected</span></span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Commenting on the findings, Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham, told the BBC: "Before, ZMapp was a total mystery.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"This is an incredible improvement on those earlier cocktails, to have 100% clearance and most importantly that clearance when they've started to show outward signs of infection."</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Referring to the seven treated patients, he added: "Clearly there is the caveat that all evidence in humans is anecdotal and no hard evidence has been released on what happens to the virus in those patients."</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Prof Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "I never thought that 40 years after I encountered the first Ebola outbreak, this disease would still be taking lives on such a devastating scale.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"This well designed trial in non-human primates provides the most convincing evidence to date that ZMapp may be an effective treatment of Ebola infection in humans.</span></div> <div style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"It is now critical that human trials start as soon as possible. "</span></div> <div class="caption body-width" style="clear: both; float: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="line" height="2" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/75306000/jpg/_75306515_line976.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; position: relative;" width="464" /></span></div> <span class="cross-head" style="display: block; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)</span></span><br /> <ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;"> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage</span></li> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Spread by body fluids, such as blood and saliva</span></li> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Fatality rate can reach 90% - but current outbreak has mortality rate of about 55%</span></li> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Incubation period is two to 21 days</span></li> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There is no vaccine or cure</span></li> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery</span></li> <li style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_21/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Fruit bats, a delicacy for some West Africans, are considered to be virus's natural host</span></li> <li style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></li> </ul> </div>

Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

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