Article published in The Global Panorama - Mar 2014
A deadly disease that’s rapidly consuming lives and in a few short months has unforeseeably brought West African countries on to their knees and on the brink of a disaster. The most formidable task we face today is to contain and quell the spread of Ebola to prevent a further escalation.
Why is it then that in a world where we have the means for research and development of advanced technologies such as 3D printers and state-of-the-art medical facilities, we still lack a reliable drug to fight against Ebola? The New York Times recently reported that about a decade ago, a drug was being tested and found to be 100% effective in curing monkeys with Ebola. However, that research failed to gain traction and clinical trials were never performed to see how this drug would fare on humans. This research came to a screeching halt because pharmaceutical companies deemed it to be an unprofitable venture due to Ebola being relatively rare at the time and mostly affecting a poor population. Perhaps, if the research had continued then, health organizations and aid workers today would have been better equipped to deal with the emergency and countries around the world would not be scrambling to find a cure under the immense pressure of time. This has directly led to our current dire situation of a limited scope of knowledge, lack of research and no human clinical trials to discern effective Ebola drugs with few or no side effects. As time quickly slips away, we are left amid gaping holes of uncertainties and palpable risks.
Dick Cheney, a previous Vice President of Unites States, initially approved and allocated a budget to fund research regarding rare and hazardous viruses. It was in light of 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax terrorist attacks against the USA, that Dick Cheney assigned utmost importance to research that would help mitigate any future dangers associated with bio-terrorist attacks against America.
Among the three most prominent drugs currently being researched today, Brincidofovir is the only one approved for testing by The Food and Drug Administration. A North Carolina drug maker called Chimerix produces the drug and has been working with the US Department of Defense. Brincidofovir is an anti viral drug and was developed as a treatment against smallpox; however, tests have suggested it may work against Ebola as well. Brincidofovir was the drug used to treat American video journalist Ashoka Mukpo who was infected with the virus while he worked in Liberia.
ZMapp is the other Ebola drug in existence and it was used to treat Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol. It is produced by a San Diego based biotech firm called ZMapp Pharmaceuticals, which uses the tobacco plant for the production of this drug. ZMapp is a cocktail of antibodies engineered to recognize the virus and bind to the effected cells. It is very time consuming to produce, supplies are limited and it has yet to be FDA approved.
TKM-Ebola injection produced by Tekira Pharmaceuticals of Canada is also an Ebola drug. It is currently in limited supply as well and works by blocking genes that help the Ebola virus reproduce and spread. It has been used in at least one patient.
It is so far known that these drugs, used in conjunction with the transfusion of blood plasma from recovered Ebola patients have been an effective cure for a limited number of patients treated in the USA so far. While the body of a person infected with Ebola puts on a fight to get rid of the virus from the effected cells, their immune system produces antibodies that help to fend off the virus along with the aid of drugs. It is these antibodies, present in their blood plasma that are then injected in to other patients infected with the same Ebola virus as inoculation. This transfusion acts as an antidote to the Ebola virus thus facilitating a faster recovery.
In an attempt to abate the threat, an all-hands-on-deck approach is being used and drug testing has not been limited to the Western nations. A Chinese drug-maker that has military ties, Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd, has already sent thousands of doses of an experimental drug to Africa and is planning to carry out clinical trials there.
Due to the disarray caused by the virus, it has been difficult to get accurate statistics from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the countries hardest hit by the virus. However, from the time of its inception and still counting, we do know that about five thousand lives have succumbed to this deadly virus. Billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Bill Gates of Microsoft are among the people that have donated millions of dollars to fund research for Ebola and thus find the means to alleviate the magnitude of this looming disaster.
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