Ebola news 9/12

[Buster's Uncle]

First person in UK trial to get experimental Ebola shot next week
Reuters
By Kate Kelland  5 hours ago



LONDON (Reuters) - The first human volunteer in a fast-tracked British safety trial of an experimental vaccine to fight Ebola is to be injected with the shot next week, organisers of the trial said on Friday.

The candidate Ebola vaccine is being co-developed by the United States National Institutes of Health and the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.

The British trial, which will ultimately involve 60 people, is part of a series of safety tests of potential vaccines aimed at preventing infection with the virus that has killed more than 2,400 people in West Africa this year in the world's largest Ebola outbreak on record.

The trial will be led by Professor Adrian Hill of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, which said on Friday the first shot is scheduled to be given to a human volunteer next week.

It gave no gender, age or other details of the volunteer, and said the planned injection day of Wednesday, Sept. 17, may also be subject to change.

The vaccine is designed to specifically target the Zaire species of Ebola - the one circulating in the current West Africa epidemic. This strain can have a mortality rate of up to 90 percent, according to the World Health Organisation.

The trial is testing the vaccine on healthy volunteers with the goal of determining whether it is safe and whether it provokes a protective immune response.

Hill said last month he was looking to recruit 60 healthy individuals from in and around the university town of Oxford, aged 18 to 50, to take part.

He said there were no concerns that any of the subjects will catch Ebola, since the vaccine contains no infectious Ebola virus material. The only Ebola component is a gene for a protein that sits on the virus's surface - and that protein does not cause illness.

The aim is to complete the tests by the end of 2014, after which vaccines could be deployed on an emergency basis.

GSK has said it plans to begin making up to about 10,000 additional doses of the vaccine at the same time as the initial clinical trials, so that if they are successful, the vaccine could be made available immediately for an emergency immunisation programme.

The WHO said on Friday the number of Ebola cases in West Africa is growing faster than authorities can manage them and urged health workers from around the world to go to the region to help.


http://news.yahoo.com/first-person-uk-trial-experimental-ebola-shot-next-153226670--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US doctor with Ebola got blood from recovered medic
AFP
2 hours ago



This undated file photo courtesy of SIM shows Dr. Rick Sacra, who was given a blood transfusion from another American doctor who recovered from the virus, hospital officials said (AFP Photo/)



Washington (AFP) - An American doctor being treated for Ebola in Nebraska was given a blood transfusion from another American doctor who recovered from the virus, hospital officials said.

Rick Sacra, 51, a Christian missionary doctor, was infected with Ebola while working as an obstetrician in Liberia, and was flown to the United States for treatment last week.

He has been given plasma from Kent Brantly, 33, another US doctor who was infected over the summer with Ebola while treating patients in the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

Brantly recovered after being cared for in an Atlanta hospital.

Sacra has been upgraded from serious to good condition, after a week of hospital care, plasma and an experimental treatment doctors declined to name.

Phil Smith, director of the Nebraska Medical Center biocontainment unit, said it is unclear which treatment has helped Sacra improve.

"We decided we were more interested in saving Rick than trying to do a pure study so we just administered everything we had access to, basically," Smith told reporters on Thursday.

When Brantly was sickened with Ebola in Monrovia, he also received blood from a child who had recovered from the hemorrhagic virus.

Last week, global health experts in Geneva agreed that blood therapies and convalescent serums can be used to fight Ebola immediately, while safety trials begin for potential vaccines.

"There was consensus," Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant Director-General of the WHO told reporters on September 5 following a two-day meeting of some 200 health experts in Geneva.

"A blood-derived product can be used now."

Experts think the presence of Ebola antibodies in the blood of recovered patients may help others fight the disease.

The largest-ever outbreak of Ebola fever has now killed more than 2,400 people and infected nearly 5,000 in West Africa, the UN health agency said on Friday.

"In the three hardest-hit countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea), the number is moving faster than the capacity to manage them," head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-doctor-ebola-got-blood-recovered-medic-184156295.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN vows to 'stay the course' in Ebola-hit Liberia
AFP
9 hours ago



A Liberian Red Cross health worker wearing a protective suit disinfects a truck on September 10, 2014 in Monrovia. (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)



Monrovia (AFP) - The United Nations has vowed its peacekeepers will not abandon Liberia and will "stay the course" despite the Ebola epidemic raging across the west African nation.

The UN mission has been in the country since the end of its civil war in 2003, but has been downsizing gradually from a peak of 15,000 troops and handing security responsibilities back to local police.

"We are not, as a peacekeeping operation, leaving Liberia," UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told AFP late Thursday.

"We are here to stay the course and to help the people of Liberia and its neighbours to get through this terrible crisis."

Ladsous is in Liberia to assess how the mission, known as UNMIL, can support the fight against Ebola and has held meetings with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and senior cabinet ministers.

"One has to recognise that a peacekeeping mission is not a public health operator. This is not what we are trained for, this is not what is intended for us to do," he said.

"But at the same time, we are there to support the country... to solve the root causes of a very long crisis."

Liberia was devastated by 14 years of back-to-back civil wars which broke out in 1989 and left more than 200,000 people dead.

Its health services were on the slow road to recovery when the worst Ebola outbreak the world has ever seen began in neighbouring Guinea at the start of the year.

Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have seen almost 5,000 cases and 2,400 deaths so far this year, according to the World Health Organization.

Health workers in Liberia reported being overwhelmed by new Ebola cases on Wednesday, with the WHO predicting an "exponential increase" in infections across west Africa.

WHO chief Margaret Chan told a news conference on Friday there is not a single bed left to treat Ebola patients in Liberia.

The agency says that among the country's 2,300 cases and 1,200 deaths, some 152 health workers have been infected and 79 have died.

Ladsous acknowledged that the actual death toll was probably considerably higher, however.

"We know that the actual numbers of victims are definitely higher and that as days pass they rise exponentially. Now it is -- everyone recognises -- a particularly bad time in Liberia," he said.

Ladsous was due to travel to Ghana on Friday to visit a logistics hub which has been set up to respond to the regional Ebola crisis.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-vows-stay-course-ebola-hit-liberia-110614695.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Using Ebola survivors' blood as remedy may carry risks
AFP
By Kerry Sheridan  1 hour ago



Medical workers of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy hospital in Monrovia walk past a sick woman waiting for assistance, on September 6, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Washington (AFP) - Two American doctors sickened by Ebola have been given blood transfusions from survivors, a technique the World Health Organization advocates but that experts say carries some risks.

Ebola has killed more than 2,400 people, about half of those infected in the latest outbreak sweeping the West African nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

There are no drugs on the market to cure or treat Ebola, no vaccines to prevent it. While trials are under way to accelerate therapies to people in need, medical experts have turned to the idea of using survivors' blood as a remedy.

The idea behind the approach is that someone who fought off Ebola is stocked with antibodies against the virus, and these protective antibodies can be transferred from one person to another.

The therapy was initially developed decades ago for the treatment of rabies, and can be delivered by the blood or blood products of humans or even animals.

"In the very old days horse serum was used a source of antibodies to treat certain infections," said Jeffrey Klausner, professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Doctors could either give a patient a blood transfusion, or use serum, a portion of the whole blood in which the cells and solid parts of the blood have been removed.



This undated photo courtesy of SIM shows Dr. Rick Sacra (AFP Photo/)


Christian missionary doctor Rick Sacra, 51, has received two blood plasma transfusions from Kent Brantly, 33, another US doctor who made a full recovery from Ebola last month, the Nebraska Medical Center said Thursday.

Brantly, who was also working in Liberia for a Christian aid group, was given an experimental drug, ZMapp, as well as blood from a Liberian boy who beat Ebola.

Sacra came down with Ebola while working as an obstetrician in Liberia.

His health is improving, but doctors are not sure if the reason is Brantly's donation, or a different experimental drug that Sacra took, or simply modern hospital care.

"We just administered everything we had access to, basically," said Phil Smith, director of the Nebraska Medical Center biocontainment unit.

That kind of kitchen-sink approach, while necessary in a crisis, makes scientific study of any individual therapy's effectiveness impossible.

Some studies have suggested there may not be many neutralizing antibodies in serum from humans who have survived Ebola, said Noel Tordo, senior virologist at France's Pasteur Institute.

"In rabies, most of the antibodies in a human or an animal would be neutralizing, they will neutralize the virus, but in Ebola it is still not sure. We don't know," he said.

"That doesn't mean that there are none, but there is not that much," he said.


- Syphilis, HIV, hepatitis -

The notion of using blood transfusions from survivors may seem like a quick and low-cost option for the West Africa outbreak.

Indeed, some 200 experts convened by the WHO earlier this month agreed that blood therapies and convalescent serums can be used to fight Ebola immediately.

But in practice, there are risks, according to Francois Bricaire, former head of infectious and tropical diseases at the Pitie Salpetriere Hospital in Paris.

"You have to make sure the serum is safe to use first, to avoid spreading HIV or hepatitis," he said.

"It's a common technology in developed countries, but difficult to put in practice in Africa," he added.

"In the midst of an epidemic, the major preoccupation is not to check everything."

Klausner agreed, saying that without adequate measures, doctors could be putting patients at risk of diseases such as AIDS and syphilis, or bad reactions to the transfusion.

"My concerns in any use of whole blood, serum or antibody therapy would be the safety of the product and the conditions of transfusion or injection," Klausner said.

"Depending on the setting whole blood therapy could be fraught will all sorts of concerns and complications like transfusion reactions, transmission of other blood borne pathogens and would have to be conducted under rigorous medical supervision to be safe."


http://news.yahoo.com/using-ebola-survivors-blood-remedy-may-carry-risks-225840906.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US Ebola Patient Gets Serum From Recovered Victim to Fight Virus
ABC News
By GILLIAN MOHNEY  September 11, 2014 4:59 PM






An American Ebola survivor has donated blood to help an infected U.S. doctor fight the deadly disease.

Dr. Richard Sacra, missionary with the group SIM, received a “convalescent serum” created from plasma donated by former Ebola patient Dr. Kent Brantly, officials at the Nebraska Medical Center said.

Brantly, who was the first-ever Ebola patient to be treated in the United States, traveled to Nebraska late last week and donated blood twice in the hopes that his blood would contain antibodies that could help Sacra survive the virus. They have the same blood type.

Dr. Phillip Smith, head of the biocontainment unit at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, said doctors then created a serum, or plasma, by removing the red blood cells. While there is no known cure for Ebola, the serum was used because there was a chance that it could help Sacra’s immune system fight off the virus.

“We’re hoping it [would] jumpstart his immunity. To survive [Ebola] you have to build up enough antibodies to [fight the virus],” Smith said. “We were hoping to buy him some time, to give his immune system time to battle the disease.”

Dr. Angela Hewlett, associate medical director of the isolation unit, said that in addition to the convalescent serum, Sacra, 51, was treated with an undisclosed experimental drug. Sacra has received the drug every night since arriving last week, but doctors said they do not know whether any of the medical treatments have helped Sacra move toward a recovery.

“I don’t know how much is due to the drug, convalescent serum [or supportive medications],” Smith said. “We decided we were more interested in saving Rick than creating a peer review study.”

Sacra contracted the virus in Liberia, where he was treating pregnant women in the maternity ward. Both Brantly and Sacra were treating patients at the ELWA hospital in Monrovia when they became infected.

Another U.S. missionary, Nancy Writebol, was also infected at the same hospital earlier this year.

The Ebola virus is believed to have killed at least 2,200 people across West Africa, since the outbreak started in March. There is no proven cure for the virus.

Debbie Sacra, the infected doctor’s wife, said Brantly and Sacra were close and that Brantly spoke to Sacra at the Nebraska hospital when he arrived.

“It really meant a lot to us that [Brantly] was willing to give that donation so soon after his recovery,” Debbie Sacra said. “I spoke to his wife. We both marveled at the fact that they had the same blood type.”

Smith, of the Nebraska Medical Center, said Sacra’s condition has steadily improved since he arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center last week. Hewlett, also with the isolation unit, said Sacra’s condition has improved to “good” from stable.

Debbie Sacra said she has spoken to her husband on closed-circuit television and that he has been moving around and eating some foods.

“I was talking to him, “ she said, “and he was mentally 80 percent.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-ebola-patient-gets-serum-recovered-victim-fight-205900714.html