Ebola News 12/22

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Tekmira to supply Ebola treatment for studies in West Africa
Reuters  21 minutes ago



Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation's head office is pictured in Burnaby, British Columbia August 5, 2014. REUTERS/Ben Nelms



TORONTO (Reuters) - Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp will supply one of its experimental Ebola treatments for clinical studies to be conducted in West Africa by a consortium that includes England's Oxford university, the Canadian company said on Monday.

Tekmira said 100 courses of its TKM-Ebola-Guinea treatment will be made available for the studies, and that it has entered into a manufacturing and clinical trial agreement with Oxford. The Tekmira treatment targets the Ebola-Guinea virus variant, responsible for the worst Ebola outbreak on record, which has hit the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea hardest.

Oxford is working with the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium, a global research group that along with the World Health Organization, Médecins Sans Frontières and others won a grant in September to start drug trials at Ebola treatment centers in West Africa.

Tekmira said the studies are expected to start early in the new year, but a protocol must be finalized first.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)


http://news.yahoo.com/tekmira-supply-ebola-treatment-studies-west-africa-152842572--finance.html

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Exclusive: Can the blood of Ebola survivors create a cure?
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen  2 hours ago



Blood samples from patients suspected of having the Ebola virus disease are prepared for transportation to Freetown for testing, at the Port Loko District Hospital September 27, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters



CHICAGO (Reuters) - For months, Vanderbilt University researcher Dr. James Crowe has been desperately seeking access to the blood of U.S. Ebola survivors, hoping to extract the proteins that helped them overcome the deadly virus for use in new, potent drugs.

His efforts finally paid off in mid-November with a donation from Dr. Rick Sacra, a University of Massachusetts physician who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. The donation puts Crowe at the forefront of a new model for fighting the virus, now responsible for the worst known outbreak in West Africa that has killed nearly 7,000 people.

"They can take antibodies they find in my blood and map them out,” Sacra said in an interview. “They are looking for the ones that are most important in neutralizing the virus.”

Sacra, a medical missionary for Christian group SIM USA, said he made the blood donation with “no strings attached,” and does not stand to gain financially if a product based on his antibodies reaches the market.

Crowe is working with privately-held drugmaker Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, which he said will manufacture the antibodies for further testing under a National Institutes of Health grant. Mapp is currently testing its own drug ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that has shown promise in treating a handful of Ebola patients.

Crowe’s hope is to improve on ZMapp by isolating the human antibodies of actual survivors and create a drug effective against all strains of Ebola.

Several leading scientists have embraced the idea of using survivors’ antibodies as the most promising approach in the fight against Ebola. Crowe is also part of a large consortium of academic and corporate partners working to develop and test human antibodies from Ebola survivors treated at Emory University that is being assembled by Department of Defense.

The push is part of the race to develop drugs to address the ongoing outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp is also testing a treatment, while drugmakers including GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Merck & Co, in partnership with NewLink Genetics Corp, are working on vaccines.

Last month, a group of prominent scientists including three Nobel laureates, urged the U.S. government to accelerate the antibodies push, Reuters reported.

"We've moving night and day around this,” Crowe said.


FOREIGN INVADERS

Antibodies are immune-system proteins that seek and destroy foreign invaders, such as viruses or bacteria. Crowe, who directs the Vaccine Center at Vanderbilt, is working with Sacra's B cells - white blood cells that form antibodies. They will synthesize genes from the most potent of these antibodies, which can be made into treatments.

Drugs created this way are called monoclonal antibodies, a manufactured protein that attacks a specific target, in this case a receptor on the Ebola virus.

    The current version of ZMapp was developed in mouse blood cells that were exposed to samples containing Ebola virus fragments from the 1995 Kikwik outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These cells were genetically modified to make them more human.   

“They may or may not work. We don't know that yet,” Crowe said of ZMapp. The next-generation product Crowe is working on will be fully human, using antibodies generated by Ebola survivors, making it less likely to cause side effects. Mapp would not comment about its drug development plans.

All of the antibodies generated in this work will be tested against live Ebola virus samples in a high-security laboratory run by Dr. Thomas Geisbert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Promising candidates will be tested in mice and guinea pigs before going to primates than then humans, a process that could take several months.

"We hope to have antibodies that are like ZMapp or better," said Geisbert, who has a $26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study experimental Ebola treatments.

A key production issue for ZMapp has been its slow method of growing antibodies in the cells of tobacco plants. In October, Mapp started working with biotechnology company Amgen to mass produce ZMapp antibodies in mammalian cells, a well established manufacturing process.

Crowe said the antibodies he is working on would be produced in both cell lines and tobacco plants. Vanderbilt will license the most promising drug candidates, and at least four commercial partners, including Mapp, are considering whether to license them. 

Crowe said he has also been in discussions with U.S. health regulators about how to design clinical trials for drugs developed from survivors’ antibodies. He estimates trials could begin in late spring or early summer of 2015.


SAMPLE SHORTAGE

Crowe's lab has been working on Ebola for the past two years. In that time, he said he has spent "a tremendous amount of effort" trying to get samples from Ebola survivors out of Africa.

Obtaining the samples during the current outbreak has proved nearly impossible, as governments in West Africa struggle to curb the virus and U.S. authorities tighten restrictions around the transfer of highly infectious materials.

As a result, Crowe and his peers in the field have been seeking out the small number of U.S. survivors who were treated in this country.

Scarcity has made the Sacra donation all the sweeter for Crowe and Geisbert.   

Crowe believes his luck turned when he mentioned the problem to Dr. Larry Zeitlin, Mapp's president. Zeitlin used his connections with missionary organizations, some of which have used ZMapp to treat their infected staff, Crowe said. Soon after, Sacra volunteered.

While none of the experimental Ebola treatments have been proven effective in rigorous clinical trials, Sacra believes they played a significant role in his own recovery in September. He received Tekmira’s TKM-Ebola and a plasma infusion from fellow survivor, and medical missionary, Dr. Kent Brantly, and said his condition improved immediately.

With a new lease on life, Sacra announced last week that he would return to Liberia to continue his medical work.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg)


http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-blood-ebola-survivors-create-cure-120818766--finance.html

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Liberian voter turnout low as Ebola overshadows senate election
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue  December 21, 2014 2:27 AM



Bystanders read the headlines illustrating the battle over the holding of elections in Liberia amid the Ebola crisis at a street side chalkboard newspaper in Monrovia, December 2, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue

   

MONROVIA (Reuters) - Turnout for Liberian parliamentary elections on Saturday appeared to be low as concerns about Ebola kept many voters at home.

Polling stations were largely empty after voting began at 8 a.m. (0800 GMT) in the seafront capital Monrovia, with voters occasionally drifting in, despite precautions put in place by the National Elections Commission (NEC).

Staff with temperature guns at polling stations checked voters for any signs of the hemorrhagic fever, which is spread via bodily fluids. Voters were obliged to wash their hands with chlorine solution, to stand at least three feet apart in the queue, and bring their own pens to mark the ballot paper, officials said.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government had delayed the polls, originally due in October, amid concerns that campaigning might worsen the spread of the Ebola virus. The Supreme Court ruled this month that the election must go ahead.

"I am going to vote because it is my right. I do not want certain people (in power) who are not in the interest of the Liberian people," said Ezekiel Togba, a resident of the Congo Town neighbourhood of Monrovia.

"I am not worrying over the Ebola virus because I follow the necessary preventive measures and I think I am safe," he said.

Some 1.9 million Liberians were registered to vote in the polls for 15 seats in the senate being contested by 137 candidates, according to the NEC.

In the most hotly contested race, for the Montserrado senate seat around Monrovia, former soccer star and 2005 losing presidential candidate George Weah faced off against Robert Sirleaf, the son of the president.

Vote counting began after polls closed at 6 p.m. (1800 GMT) and the first results were expected on Sunday, electoral officials said.

The death toll from Ebola in Liberia, neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three worst-affected countries in West Africa, has risen to 7,373 from 19,031 cases, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

Sierra Leone accounts for the most cases, 8,759, against 7,819 for Liberia, which has shown an improvement in recent weeks after the epidemic exploded there in August, the WHO has said.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberian-voter-turnout-low-ebola-overshadows-senate-election-072732449.html

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Can the blood of Ebola survivors create a cure?
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen  4 hours ago



A Sierra Leonean doctor practises wearing protective clothing in the Ebola Training Academy in Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



CHICAGO (Reuters) - For months, Vanderbilt University researcher Dr. James Crowe has been desperately seeking access to the blood of U.S. Ebola survivors, hoping to extract the proteins that helped them overcome the deadly virus for use in new, potent drugs.

His efforts finally paid off in mid-November with a donation from Dr. Rick Sacra, a University of Massachusetts physician who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. The donation puts Crowe at the forefront of a new model for fighting the virus, now responsible for the worst known outbreak in West Africa that has killed nearly 7,000 people.

"They can take antibodies they find in my blood and map them out,” Sacra said in an interview. “They are looking for the ones that are most important in neutralizing the virus.”

Sacra, a medical missionary for Christian group SIM USA, said he made the blood donation with “no strings attached,” and does not stand to gain financially if a product based on his antibodies reaches the market.

Crowe is working with privately-held drugmaker Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, which he said will manufacture the antibodies for further testing under a National Institutes of Health grant. Mapp is currently testing its own drug ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that has shown promise in treating a handful of Ebola patients.

Crowe’s hope is to improve on ZMapp by isolating the human antibodies of actual survivors and create a drug effective against all strains of Ebola.

Several leading scientists have embraced the idea of using survivors’ antibodies as the most promising approach in the fight against Ebola. Crowe is also part of a large consortium of academic and corporate partners working to develop and test human antibodies from Ebola survivors treated at Emory University that is being assembled by Department of Defense.

The push is part of the race to develop drugs to address the ongoing outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp is also testing a treatment, while drugmakers including GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Merck & Co, in partnership with NewLink Genetics Corp, are working on vaccines.

Last month, a group of prominent scientists including three Nobel laureates, urged the U.S. government to accelerate the antibodies push, Reuters reported. [ID: nL1N0SW2HL]

"We've moving night and day around this,” Crowe said.


FOREIGN INVADERS

Antibodies are immune-system proteins that seek and destroy foreign invaders, such as viruses or bacteria. Crowe, who directs the Vaccine Center at Vanderbilt, is working with Sacra's B cells - white blood cells that form antibodies. They will synthesize genes from the most potent of these antibodies, which can be made into treatments.

Drugs created this way are called monoclonal antibodies, a manufactured protein that attacks a specific target, in this case a receptor on the Ebola virus.

The current version of ZMapp was developed in mouse blood cells that were exposed to samples containing Ebola virus fragments from the 1995 Kikwik outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These cells were genetically modified to make them more human.   

“They may or may not work. We don't know that yet,” Crowe said of ZMapp. The next-generation product Crowe is working on will be fully human, using antibodies generated by Ebola survivors, making it less likely to cause side effects. Mapp would not comment about its drug development plans.

All of the antibodies generated in this work will be tested against live Ebola virus samples in a high-security laboratory run by Dr. Thomas Geisbert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Promising candidates will be tested in mice and guinea pigs before going to primates than then humans, a process that could take several months.

"We hope to have antibodies that are like ZMapp or better," said Geisbert, who has a $26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study experimental Ebola treatments.

A key production issue for ZMapp has been its slow method of growing antibodies in the cells of tobacco plants. In October, Mapp started working with biotechnology company Amgen to mass produce ZMapp antibodies in mammalian cells, a well established manufacturing process.

Crowe said the antibodies he is working on would be produced in both cell lines and tobacco plants. Vanderbilt will license the most promising drug candidates, and at least four commercial partners, including Mapp, are considering whether to license them. 

Crowe said he has also been in discussions with U.S. health regulators about how to design clinical trials for drugs developed from survivors’ antibodies. He estimates trials could begin in late spring or early summer of 2015.


SAMPLE SHORTAGE

Crowe's lab has been working on Ebola for the past two years. In that time, he said he has spent "a tremendous amount of effort" trying to get samples from Ebola survivors out of Africa.

Obtaining the samples during the current outbreak has proved nearly impossible, as governments in West Africa struggle to curb the virus and U.S. authorities tighten restrictions around the transfer of highly infectious materials.

As a result, Crowe and his peers in the field have been seeking out the small number of U.S. survivors who were treated in this country.

Scarcity has made the Sacra donation all the sweeter for Crowe and Geisbert.   

Crowe believes his luck turned when he mentioned the problem to Dr. Larry Zeitlin, Mapp's president. Zeitlin used his connections with missionary organizations, some of which have used ZMapp to treat their infected staff, Crowe said. Soon after, Sacra volunteered.

While none of the experimental Ebola treatments have been proven effective in rigorous clinical trials, Sacra believes they played a significant role in his own recovery in September. He received Tekmira’s TKM-Ebola and a plasma infusion from fellow survivor, and medical missionary, Dr. Kent Brantly, and said his condition improved immediately.

With a new lease on life, Sacra announced last week that he would return to Liberia to continue his medical work.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg)


http://news.yahoo.com/blood-ebola-survivors-create-cure-132718427--finance.html

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Ebola Epidemic Continues in Africa, Despite Progress in Some Places
LiveScience.com
By Karen Rowan  28 minutes ago



The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has undergone a dramatic change in the past several months, U.S. health officials said today (Dec. 22).

There has been "real progress" in the fight against the deadly viral disease, but eliminating Ebola will require much more work, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters.

"The response is inspiring, but the challenges are sobering," said Frieden, who just returned from a trip to the region of West Africa affected by the outbreak.

In Guinea, officials with Doctors Without Borders said they'd seen "the scariest thing I've heard," Frieden said: For the first time since the outbreak began, there were not enough beds for sick patients in treatment centers in the capital city of Conakry.

And in Sierra Leone, at least 10 people die every day in their communities, rather than in treatment centers, Frieden said. The number of people dying in communities is important because those deaths indicate the region faces a greater risk that the disease will spread to others, compared with places where most deaths occur in treatment centers.

Of the three countries hit hardest by the outbreak — Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia — Sierra Leone now has the most cases of Ebola, he said. However, in the country's capital city Freetown, there is now an "impressive" command center that is staffed by about 100 people, Frieden said. If the outbreak in Freetown proceeds similarly to how it did in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia, then within the next few weeks, there should be a significant decrease in cases, he said.

Of the three countries, the most hopeful situation is that of Liberia, Frieden said. The number of cases there has decreased quickly, and the country's Ebola treatment center is well run, and has only a handful of patients. Moreover, there are now fewer deaths in places where people previously had been barely able to keep up with the number of dead who needed to be buried, he said.

There have been more than 19,000 cases of Ebola since the outbreak began during the early part of 2014, and about 7,400 people have died of the disease, according to the latest numbers from the CDC.

In order to stop the outbreak, officials need to halt the exponential growth of cases, and trace all of the people who were in contact with sick individuals so that health care workers can follow up with them. Moreover, officials need to strengthen the capacity of health care systems in areas that are now Ebola-free, so that in any cases that develop, ill people can be isolated and cared for promptly, he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-epidemic-continues-africa-despite-progress-places-232453493.html

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African nations should be more engaged in Ebola fight: Ethiopia
AFP  4 hours ago



Volunteers arrive to pick up bodies of people who died of the Ebola virus, on October 8, 2014 in Freetown (AFP Photo/Florian Plaucheur)



Addis Ababa (AFP) - African nations need to be more engaged in the fight against the Ebola virus and stop relying on aid from Western governments, Ethiopia's prime minister said Monday.

Hailemariam Desalegn said the response to the epidemic in west Africa should not be "only for the non-Africans", urging African states to respond to an African Union appeal to send medical staff to affected areas.

"We should show that there is a solidarity within the African countries," he told reporters.

"Usually the notion is that whenever this kind of epidemic happens, it is the Western countries and other big countries that have to be involved," he said.

But he added: "We have to break this and show that Africans also are there for Africans. We should try our best to bring African solutions to African problems."

Last week Ethiopia sent 187 health volunteers to Sierra Leone and Liberia, the largest contingent of medical professionals from any African country since the Ebola crisis began. Desalegn said a further 1,000 volunteers were ready to go.

A number of African states, however, are reluctant to send volunteers, due to either a lack of means or fears they are not equipped to deal with any who return infected with the virus.

Ethiopia's health minister, Kesete Birhan Admasu, said the Ethiopian volunteers returning home would be placed under medical surveillance for three weeks.

But he has also called on African nations to accelerate efforts to establish a continental centre along the lines of the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Had we have established this centre last year, Africa might have responded early and could have contained the virus," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/african-nations-more-engaged-ebola-fight-ethiopia-203320735.html

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U.N. warns Ebola-linked farm losses could threaten banking in West Africa
Reuters
By Chris Arsenault  7 hours ago



ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The Ebola epidemic threatens rural banking in three West African countries with the potential to disrupt agriculture next year as farmers won’t have access to credit to buy seeds and fertilizer, two UN officials warned on Monday.

Several million farmers across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are struggling to repay small loans of between $100 and $500 as border closures, movement restrictions and fears from consumers have left many agriculturalists insolvent.

If farmers are unable to repay borrowed money, a local banking crisis could sweep affected-countries causing small rural lenders to default and wrecking havoc on future food production even after the health emergency subsides.

"A lending freeze-up is a possibility," Abdoul Barry, country manager for Guinea with the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Next year (many farmers in effected countries) won't be able to borrow money."

Exact numbers on how many growers are expected to default, or on how much food production has dropped due to the crisis, are not available, as conducting research during an epidemic is nearly impossible, UN officials said.

More than 7,370 people have died from Ebola in the three worst affected countries since March, the World Health Organization reported on Saturday.

The tide has turned in the fight against the epidemic in much of the region due to improved sanitation, said Ndaya Beltchika, IFAD's program manager for Sierra Leone and Liberia but trouble looms on the horizon.

"Food production will be impacted, but to what extent, it's hard to say," Beltchika told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Communities with large numbers of reported Ebola cases could face long-term stigmatization, leaving local farmers unable to sell their products next year, even if they can gain access to credit, she warned.

The risk of a banking collapse, starting with farmers who can't pay their debts and ending with the collapse of lending institutions causing a credit crunch, is possible, she said.

Liberia has an annual per capita income of just $700, Guinea $1,100 and Sierra Leone $1,400, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Any drop in food production or price rises will force families to go hungry.

(Reporting By Chris Arsenault, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-warns-ebola-linked-farm-losses-could-174704004.html

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After Ebola, UN must prepare for next deadly outbreak: Ban
AFP  6 hours ago



UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visits an Ebola treatment unit pts1 in Freetown on December 19, 2014, part of his tour of West African countries worst hit by the Ebola virus (AFP Photo/Evan Schneider)



United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations must learn lessons from the Ebola crisis and begin preparing now for the next outbreak of deadly disease, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

Returning from a visit to Ebola-hit countries, Ban also called for recovery efforts to be stepped up in West Africa to rebuild shattered economies, get children back in school and begin caring for Ebola orphans.

"We must learn the lessons of Ebola, which go well beyond strengthening public health systems," Ban told reporters at UN headquarters.

"The international community needs better early warning and rapid response."

The UN chief said he will launch a serious effort to "explore what more we can do to stay ahead of the next outbreak of disease -- a test that is sure to come."

Ban traveled to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the epicenter of the year-long Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 6,900 people. He also traveled to Mali, which has had a recent outbreak and Ghana, headquarters of the UN Ebola Emergency Mission.

His call to take stock of the Ebola response followed sharp criticism from non-governmental organisations that the United Nations, in particular the World Health Organization, were too slow to swing into action.

The outbreak began in December in Guinea but it took nine months for the United Nations to decide to set up an emergency mission and to press for international mobilization to beat back the virus.

Diplomats have pointed the finger at the WHO for failing to quickly raise the alarm, but there has also been some soul-searching over funding cuts at the UN agency that have forced it to reduce its scope of action.

Ban said scaling up recovery efforts in West Africa was one of four urgent steps needed to address the Ebola crisis.

He also cited the need to adapt the response by chasing the virus in remote areas of West Africa and looking at isolated chains of transmission.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-un-must-prepare-next-deadly-outbreak-ban-183109011.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Death toll from Ebola in West Africa rises to 7,518: WHO
Reuters  7 hours ago



A grave digger watches as health workers carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial at a cemetery in Freetown December 17, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



LONDON (Reuters) - The death toll from Ebola in the three West Africa countries hardest hit by the epidemic has risen to 7,518 out of 19,340 confirmed cases recorded there to date, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

The latest data reflect more than 140 new deaths since the last update, posted by the WHO barely three days earlier. The epidemic, centered in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, is the world's worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever.

Sierra Leone accounts for the most cases, 8,939, while Liberia has 7,830 and Guinea 2,571. But Sierra Leone's death toll of 2,556 is much less than the 3,376 recorded in Liberia, leading some health experts to question the credibility of the figures reported by Freetown.

Sierra Leone's government last week launched a major operation to contain the epidemic, where the public health infrastructure is flimsy and poverty widespread as in other West African countries.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-ebola-west-africa-rises-7-518-173253666.html