695 Ebola Cures

Ebola Cures

Newsletter published on 29 October 2014

(1) Rehydration fixes Ebola! Water, salt and sugar
(2) Tobacco plants genetically engineered to fight Ebola
(3) Favipiravir - Ebola Drug From Japan
(4) JK-05 - Chinese drug similar to Favipiravir
(5) Thai hospital develops antibody to cure Ebola patients
(6) British Ebola survivor to donate blood plasma in search for cure
(7) Israeli BioPharm company Protalix can produce the ZMapp Ebola drug
(8) Fear of Litigation delays release of Ebola drugs; companies seek
limited liability
(9) US Army withheld promise from Germany that Ebola virus wouldn’t be
weaponized

(1) Rehydration fixes Ebola! Water, salt and sugar
From: "Mel" <bmelvi@tpg.com.au> Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 10:49:08 +1000
Subject: Rehydration fixes ebola!

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/nigerias-ebola-outbreak-officially-26316066

Nigeria Declared Ebola-Free; 'Spectacular Success'

ABUJA, Nigeria — Oct 20, 2014, 2:34 PM ET

By MICHELLE FAUL and ANDREW NJUGUNA Associated Press

Water laced with salt and sugar, and gallons of the nasty-tasting stuff.

Doctors who survived Ebola in Nigeria credited heavy doses of fluids
with saving their lives as the World Health Organization declared the
country Ebola-free Monday, a rare victory in the battle against the
disease that is ravaging West Africa.

In the end, Nigeria — the most populous country in Africa, with 160
million people — had just 20 cases, including eight deaths, a lower
death rate than the 70 percent seen elsewhere across the stricken region.

Officials are crediting strong tracking and isolation of people exposed
to the virus, and aggressive rehydration of infected patients to counter
the effects of vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms.

Nigeria's containment of Ebola is a "spectacular success story," said
Rui Gama Vaz, WHO director for Nigeria.

Survivor Dr. Adaora Igonoh said the treatment is not easy. It entails
drinking, as she did, at least five liters (1.3 gallons) of the solution
every day for five or six days when you have mouth sores and a sore
throat and feel depressed.

"You don't want to drink anything. You're too weak, and with the sore
throat it's difficult to swallow, but you know when you have just
vomited, you need it," she told The Associated Press. "I had to mentally
tell myself, 'You have got to drink this fluid, whether it tastes nice
or not.'"

Some 9,000 people have been infected with Ebola, and about 4,500 have
died, mostly in hard-hit Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, with the
number of cases expected to increase exponentially in the coming weeks.

Dr. Simon Mardel, one of the world's leading experts on viral
hemorrhagic fevers, said the number of deaths could be cut in half if
infected people were taught to properly hydrate themselves and do not
take anti-inflammatory drugs, which can actually harm Ebola victims. [...]

Mardel, of Britain’s University Hospital of South Manchester, called
rehydration a low-tech approach that has been neglected by a medical
system focused on groundbreaking research. [...]

(2) Tobacco plants genetically engineered to fight Ebola
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-health-ebola-tobacco-idUSKBN0G607J20140806

Tobacco-derived 'plantibodies' enter the fight against Ebola

By Sharon Begley

NEW YORK Wed Aug 6, 2014 12:05am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Drugmakers' use of the tobacco plant as a fast and
cheap way to produce novel biotechnology treatments is gaining global
attention because of its role in an experimental Ebola therapy.

The treatment, which had been tested only in lab animals before being
given to two American medical workers in Liberia, consists of proteins
called monoclonal antibodies that bind to and inactivate the Ebola virus.

For decades biotech companies have produced such antibodies by growing
genetically engineered mouse cells in enormous metal bioreactors. But in
the case of the new Ebola treatment ZMapp, developed by Mapp
Pharmaceuticals, the antibodies were produced in tobacco plants at
Kentucky Bioprocessing, a unit of tobacco giant Reynolds American.

The tobacco-plant-produced monoclonals have been dubbed "plantibodies."

"Tobacco makes for a good vehicle to express the antibodies because it
is inexpensive and it can produce a lot," said Erica Ollmann Saphire, a
professor at The Scripps Research Institute and a prominent researcher
in viral hemorrhagic fever diseases like Ebola. "It is grown in a
greenhouse and you can manufacture kilograms of the materials. It is
much less expensive than cell culture."

In the standard method of genetic engineering, DNA is slipped into
bacteria, and the microbes produce a protein that can be used to combat
a disease.

A competing approach called molecular "pharming" uses a plant instead of
bacteria. In the case of the Ebola treatment, Mapp uses the common
tobacco plant, Nicotiana benthanmianas.

The process is very similar. A gene is inserted into a virus that is
then used to infect the tobacco plant. The virus acts like a
micro-Trojan Horse, ferrying the engineered DNA into the plant.

Cells infected with the virus and the gene it is carrying produce the
target protein. The tobacco leaves are then harvested and processed to
extract the protein, which is purified.

ZMapp's protein is a monoclonal antibody, which resembles ordinary
disease-fighting antibodies but has a highly specific affinity for
particular cells, including viruses such as Ebola. It attaches itself to
the virus cells and inactivates them. [...]

(3) Favipiravir - Ebola Drug From Japan

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-07/ebola-drug-from-japan-may-emerge-among-key-candidates.html

Ebola Drug From Japan May Emerge Among Key Candidates

By Cynthia Koons, Kanoko Matsuyama and Robert Langreth 2014-08-07T15:17:37Z

Aug. 5 -- U.S. government researchers are working hard to get an
experimental flu drug from Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp. quickly
approved to treat Ebola, as the death toll rises in West Africa.

Fujifilm’s U.S. partner MediVector Inc. in Boston is in talks with the
Food and Drug Administration to submit an application to use the drug in
humans for Ebola, according to Department of Defense spokeswoman Amy
Derrick-Frost. If successful, the treatment drug would be one of the
first allowed by U.S. regulators to fight the disease in humans.

The Department of Defense has prioritized the completion of a study that
tests the drug called favipiravir in Ebola-infected monkeys,
Derrick-Frost said. The drug can be fast-tracked through the regulatory
review process after the studies are complete, she said. Preliminary
monkey data are expected in mid-September, she said.

The advantage of using favipiravir in an Ebola outbreak is that it has
already been extensively tested for use as an anti-viral in human trials
for influenza. The drug is now in a U.S. final-stage trial for treating
influenza.

In addition, the drug is a pill, unlike the cocktail of injected
antibodies administered to two Americans who got Ebola. This means it
may be easier to use in rural locations with limited medical
infrastructure. [...]

Favipiravir was discovered by Yousuke Furuta at the Toyama Chemical unit
of Tokyo-based Fujifilm in 1998. It targets polymerase, an enzyme
viruses use to replicate inside the body, to stop the viruses from
spreading.

The Department of Defense in 2012 awarded a $138.5 million contract to
MediVector to further develop favipiravir against multiple influenza
viruses. Fujifilm retains the rights to the drug.

While human tests in influenza are far along, two studies in mice
published earlier this year suggested that favipiravir could protect the
animals against Ebola. [...]

(4) JK-05 - Chinese drug similar to Favipiravir
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/10/15/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/china-company-says-ebola-drug-get-early-approval/

Chinese company says its Ebola drug could get early approval

Reuters

     * Oct 15, 2014

SHANGHAI – A Chinese drugmaker with close military ties is seeking
fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola as China
joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of the disease, which has
spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd. signed a tie-up with Chinese
research Academy of Military Medical Sciences last week to help push the
drug, called JK-05, through the approval process in China and bring it
to market.

The drug, developed by the academy, is currently approved for emergency
military use only.

“We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration
before the end of the year,” Sihuan’s chairman, Che Fengsheng, said
during an investor call last week. “They are looking at this very
seriously . . . and we could get on the green-light track,” he added. [...]

China’s Ebola cure bid still lags U.S.-developed ZMapp and TKM-Ebola,
but Sihuan management said the drug has proven effective during animal
testing on mice.

The drug, which AMMS has been studying and developing already for five
years, is similar to the Japanese flu drug favipiravir, developed by
Fujifilm Holdings Corp., which has been used effectively to treat
patients with Ebola.

ZMapp and TKM-Ebola have been tested on monkeys, which give a closer
immune response to that of humans, and have been used to treat human
patients with the disease.

JK-05 has not yet undergone clinical trials, but Sihuan management said
the firm is actively working toward clinical tests of the drug, which
could be shorter than normally required. The drug has also shown promise
against diseases such as influenza and yellow fever.

Chinese military doctor Wang Hongquan, credited with inventing the drug,
said in the investors’ call that JK-05 would first be used to treat
Chinese who are working in Africa and have the disease, but treating
other nationals would require further international approval.

There are millions of Chinese living in Africa, with around 10,000 in
the worst-affected countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

JK-05 could also be used if Ebola spreads to China.

“We can’t rule out the possibility that it will spread to Asia.
Particularly in China now, we have lots of connections with different
international cities and many people coming and going across our
borders,” he said in the call.

Company management and analysts said an Ebola outbreak in China would
further speed up the approval process and development of the drug.

“It is highly likely the Ebola indication could be approved very quickly
if Ebola was to spread to China,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Jack Hu in
an analyst note on Sunday.

(5) Thai hospital develops antibody to cure Ebola patients

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/thai-hospital-says-it-has/1393414.html

Thai hospital says it has Ebola cure, could be mass produced within a year

     * By Panu Wongcha-um
     * POSTED: 02 Oct 2014 12:32
     * UPDATED: 03 Oct 2014 00:42

BANGKOK: Doctors at the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hosptial, Mahidol
University in Bangkok, Thailand claim that they have developed a new
antibody that could cure Ebola patients. The antibody could be a year
away from being produced on a large scale, they said.

In a press conference on Thursday (Oct 2), the hospital announced that
it has produced antibodies against Ebola that are small enough to enter
infected cells, and also access the virus proteins within the cell.

Dr Wanpen Chaicumpa, head of the Ebola research team at Siriraj
Hosptial, said: "Conventional antibody that works against virus was to
prevent the entry of virus into cells. But our antibody, because it is
small and cell penetrable, it can follow the virus that already enters
the cell, like in an infected patient. And it can block ... the virus
replication process."

The research will also result in a cure that is more efficient and
effective than other potential cures, say the doctors. There is
currently no vaccine or cure for Ebola, but an experimental drug, ZMapp,
is currently undergoing testing.

Saying that the discovery is a breakthrough from a research standpoint,
the doctors say their prototype antibodies were developed using human
genes. The samples used are viruses similar to the five Ebola strands
and no live Ebola viruses were used, they added.

The doctors say the next step is to conduct animal testing before moving
on to testing the vaccine on humans. Dr Udom Kachintorn, Dean of the
Faculty of Medicine at Siriraj Hospital, said: "In theory, we are 100
per cent confident of our antibody research. But there are two more
steps in the scientific process - first, is testing it for safety and
efficacy in animals. Then, a clinical trial with humans." If the tests
are successful, the antibody would then need to be manufactured on a
large scale.

While Siriraj doctors warn that this could be a year away, they also
insist that the Thai pharmaceutical sector could help rush the
development, pending more tests. Currently, the research will be
followed up by Siam Bioscience, a joint Thai-Cuban pharmaceutical
launched this year.

Ebola is spread by close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected
person who is showing symptoms, or by touching the corpse of a person
who died from the hemorrhagic virus. The fast-growing Ebola outbreak in
West Africa has killed more than 3,000 people since the start of the year.

(6) British Ebola survivor to donate blood plasma in search for cure

http://rt.com/uk/189956-pooley-ebola-blood-epidemic/

22:35 GMT, Sep 25, 2014

Published time: September 23, 2014 16:01

William Pooley, the first Briton to contract Ebola who later fully
recovered from the disease, has agreed to donate blood plasma to treat
victims.

On Monday, the World Health Organization reported that 2,811 people have
so far died from this year’s outbreak of the deadly virus.

Experts now hope that Pooley’s blood could play a vital part in fighting
the deadly disease, the Telegraph reports.

The blood of survivors contains natural antibodies that can protect
against Ebola.

When transferred to another patient, doctors say, the infected person
seemingly benefits from the boost to their immune system.

British nurse Pooley, 29, contracted Ebola while treating victims of the
virus in Sierra Leone. He made a full recovery at a London hospital
after been given the experimental drug ZMapp. Blood plasma contains
antibodies that fight diseases and has been injected into Ebola victims
before. Pooley's blood is said to now contain natural antibodies that
could help protect against the virus. [...]

The virus is transmitted through sweat, blood and saliva, and there is
no proven cure.

British scientists are now preparing to test potential drugs and
vaccines in Africa by November with a £3.2m grant from the Wellcome
Trust in collaboration with the WHO, Oxford University and others. The
first few volunteers were injected with a vaccine in Oxford last week.

Pharmaceutical companies are already scaling up production of the
vaccines, anti-viral drugs and other treatments that will be tested so
large numbers of doses are ready as soon as the first trial results are
available.

Last week, Pooley travelled to Atlanta, in the United States, in the
hope of helping an Ebola victim. He reportedly offered to undergo a
blood transfusion to help the American, who has not been identified.

(7) Israeli BioPharm company Protalix can produce the ZMapp Ebola drug

http://nocamels.com/2014/09/israeli-biopharm-company-protalix-can-produce-the-zmapp-ebola-drug/

By By Times of Israel Staff September 12, 2014 0 Comments

This article was first published on The Times of Israel and was
re-posted with permission.

Protalix, an Israeli biopharmaceutical company located outside of the
northern city of Carmiel, said Saturday that it has the resources to
produce the experimental Ebola vaccine, ZMapp, which has recently run out.

In an interview with Channel 2, Protalix’s Dr. Yossi Shaaltiel, the
executive vice president of research and development said: “Today our
production capacity exceeds our needs, and we would certainly be happy
to have the company producing the Ebola drug have us produce the drug
for them. We would know how to do it effectively, in large quantities,
and in a relatively short period of time.”

Israeli BioPharm Company Protalix Can Produce The ZMapp Ebola Drug

Shaaltiel said the company is more proficient in the genetic engineering
of tobacco plants — from which the ZMapp medication is drawn — than any
other plant. The TV report maintained that the facilities in northern
Israel were more advanced, and better equipped than the greenhouses in
the US where production of the ZMapp drug takes place.

When the company started out, Shaaltiel said, “We were considered crazy.”

“Now we are proving that we are the only ones working with the [kind of]
plants that [are developed into] pharmaceutical drugs which are
approved,” he said.

(8) Fear of Litigation delays release of Ebola drugs; companies seek
limited liability

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/25/ebol-o25.html

As World Health Organization, drug companies meet

Why is there no vaccine for Ebola?

By Patrick Martin
25 October 2014

The chief executive of the World Health Organization met with
representatives of major drug manufacturers in Geneva Thursday to
discuss efforts to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus. The meeting
took place as the number of confirmed victims of the outbreak in
Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea topped 10,000, with nearly 5,000 deaths.

The disease has penetrated a sixth country in West Africa, with a single
case reported in Mali. There have been isolated cases in Senegal and
Nigeria, but health authorities in both countries claimed to have halted
the outbreaks with only a handful of deaths.

A fourth US Ebola victim was reported Thursday, when a doctor at
Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, who had been working as
a volunteer in West Africa for Doctors Without Borders, came down with a
high fever and was quarantined for treatment.

According to press reports, the European Union has agreed to finance
clinical trials of a vaccine, earmarking $31 million for research. The
drug companies were focused on their bottom lines, insisting on limiting
liability for any potential damage if a vaccine is rushed into
production with less than normal testing.

Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, told the BBC, “I think it is
reasonable that there should be some level of indemnification because
the vaccine is essentially being used in an emergency situation before
we’ve all had the chance to confirm” that it is safe to use.

Other top executives in attendance included Charles Link, the CEO of
Iowa-based NewLink Genetics, and Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer
and worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnson. Both companies have
vaccines in development.

The WHO said Tuesday that two vaccines would be tested in large-scale
studies in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries that
are the focus of the epidemic, beginning in January. One was developed
by the US National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline, the other
by the Public Health Agency of Canada and NewLink.

The process is slow compared to the speed of propagation of the disease,
with preliminary results likely by the end of 2015.

Three other vaccines will begin safety testing for possible side effects
in the first quarter of 2015, using healthy volunteers outside the Ebola
zone.

These discussions are overshadowed by two US press reports that
demonstrate the role of the drug companies in blocking any progress on
stopping Ebola for the past 15 years because they saw no way to make a
profit from a vaccine for a disease that killed only poor African villagers.

The New York Times article was published October 24 under the headline,
“Ebola Vaccine, Ready for Test, Sat on the Shelf.” It reported that
Canadian and US scientists several years ago developed a vaccine that
was 100 percent effective in protecting monkeys from Ebola. “The
researchers said tests in people might start within two years, and a
product could potentially be ready for licensing by 2010 or 2011,” the
Times said.

“It never happened. The vaccine sat on a shelf. Only now is it
undergoing the most basic safety tests in humans with nearly 5,000
people dead from Ebola and an epidemic raging out of control in West
Africa.”

The article noted that the development of the vaccine to the
monkey-trial stage cost only a modest amount, but comprehensive trials
of effectiveness and safety in humans, plus the development of
manufacturing techniques to produce sizeable quantities of vaccine,
would cost up to $1.5 billion.

“Most drug companies have resisted spending the enormous sums needed to
develop products useful mostly to countries with little ability to pay,”
the Times continued.

The vaccine in question was patented by the Canadian Public Health
Agency and is now being developed for human use by NewLink Genetics.

Five days before, on October 19, the Wall Street Journal published an
equally devastating indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, profiling
the work of Dr. Nancy J. Sullivan at NIH, who worked on the other
most-promising vaccine candidate, now being brought to market by
GlaxoSmithKline.

Sullivan began working on Ebola in 1997, after a 1995 outbreak in Zaire,
and by late 1998 had developed a vaccine candidate that the Centers for
Disease Control tested on monkeys, confirming 100 percent success by
July 1999. According to the Journal account, “Unvaccinated monkeys
became sick and died within about a week. The four vaccinated monkeys
had no detectable virus—something science had never before accomplished.”

The results were published in the prestigious journal Nature in 2000.
But the pharmaceutical industry was not interested in developing an
Ebola vaccine. The Journal account explains why: “The recently retired
chief of vaccines at Merck & Co. said ‘there’s no market for this.’ The
Wall Street Journal wrote of ‘the relatively tiny risk posed by Ebola.’”

These accounts demonstrate that there is no Ebola vaccine today, even
though the virus has been analyzed systematically for several decades
and promising initial steps were taken in government research
laboratories, because the private drug monopolies that control the
development and manufacture of vaccines did not find it profitable.

This underscores the fact that the 5,000 deaths from Ebola in West
Africa were completely avoidable. The blood is on the hands of Merck,
Pfizer, Glaxo and the other multinational companies which have a
vampire-like grip on the production of all forms of medication vital for
public health care.

The various governments that act as agents of the drug companies—in the
US, Britain, Germany and other imperialist countries—are equally culpable.

Meanwhile, the impact of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is so dire
that public health measures alone may prove insufficient to stamp it
out. The WHO warned Tuesday that 19,000 doctors and nurses would be
needed by December 1 in the region, compared to less than a thousand
today, along with 500 burial teams, compared to only 50 now in operation.

Dr. Anthony Fauci of the NIH warned that a vaccine may prove to be the
only viable means of fighting the Ebola outbreak. Tragically, that would
mean millions of deaths during the period that the long-delayed vaccine
is developed into a usable medication capable of mass production.

(9) US Army withheld promise from Germany that Ebola virus wouldn’t be
weaponized

Published time: October 20, 2014 17:17

http://rt.com/news/197500-us-army-ebola-weapon/

The United States has withheld assurances from Germany that the Ebola
virus - among other related diseases - would not be weaponized in the
event of Germany exporting it to the US Army Medical Research Institute
for Infectious Diseases.

German MFA Deputy Head of Division for Export Control Markus Klinger
provided a paper to the US consulate's Economics Office (Econoff),
"seeking additional assurances related to a proposed export of extremely
dangerous pathogens."

Germany subsequently made two follow-up requests and clarifications to
the Army, according to the unclassified Wikileaks cable.

"This matter concerns the complete genome of viruses such as the Zaire
Ebola virus, the Lake Victoria Marburg virus, the Machupo virus and the
Lassa virus, which are absolutely among the most dangerous pathogens in
the world," the request notes.

The Zaire Ebola virus was the same strain of Ebola virus which has been
rampaging through West Africa in recent months.

"The delivery would place the recipient in the position of being able to
create replicating recombinant infectious species of these viruses," the
cable notes.

However, it also points out that Germany has in place an "exceptionally
restrictive policy," adding that approval would not be granted to the
export until US assurance was provided.

"A decision about the export has not yet been made. Given the foregoing,
we would appreciate confirmation that the end use certificate really is
from the Department of the Army and of the accuracy of the data
contained therein," the document stated.

There is no follow-up document available to confirm whether the US Army
eventually provided Germany with the necessary guarantees.

Bioweapons were outlawed in the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972
and was signed and ratified by 179 signatories, including Germany, the
US and Russia.

It dictates that signatories, "under all circumstances the use of
bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons is effectively prohibited
by the Convention" and "the determination of States parties to condemn
any use of biological agents or toxins other than for peaceful purposes,
by anyone at any time."