This is great news especially for West Africa.
Experimental Ebola drug cured 100% of monkeys tested
By Liz Szabo
n what scientists are calling a "monumental achievement," an experimental medication called ZMapp — given on a compassionate basis to a handful of Ebola victims in the current outbreak — cured 100% of monkeys treated in a Canadian study, researchers announced Friday.
ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceuticals of San Diego, is in the early stage of development and has never been formally tested in humans. In a study published Friday in the journal Nature, however, the drug allowed all 18 rhesus macaques infected with a lethal dose of Ebola to recover. The drug worked even when given five days after infection. The monkeys received three doses of ZMapp, administered three days apart, according to the study, which was conducted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The three monkeys that did not receive ZMapp died within eight days of infection.
In monkeys given ZMapp, however, the drug reversed severe symptoms, including severe bleeding, rashes and elevated liver enzymes, a sign of liver failure. Three weeks after infection, tests showed the surviving animals had no detectable Ebola virus in their blood.
Mapp Biopharmaceuticals has said that there are no more doses of ZMapp left. The drug, which includes three man-made antibodies to Ebola, takes months to manufacture. The antibodies are intended to allow the patients' immune system to respond to Ebola and fight off the infection.
Given the limited experience with ZMapp in humans, it's not yet possible to know how ZMapp works in humans, Geisbert says.
That's because ZMapp has been given to only a handful of patients, with no control group for comparison, he says.
It sounds like ZMapp requires a complex production process that might take some time to ramp up, assuming that testing on human subjects proves successful. Still this could be the game changing breakthrough that researchers are seeking. The recent emergence of a new strain of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo complicates researchers efforts to find a cure.