New Ebola Drug 100% Effective In Monkeys

TrisexualPuppy writes "A team of scientists at Boston University has created a cure for the Ebola virus, first discovered in 1976. After setting the correct dosages, all monkeys tested with the vaccine survived with only mild effects. No tests have been performed on humans yet, as outbreaks happen infrequently and are difficult to track. Quoting NPR: '[The drug] contains snippets of RNA derived from three of the virus's seven genes. That "payload" is packaged in protective packets of nucleic acid and fat molecules. These little stealth missiles attach to the Ebola virus's replication machinery, "silencing" the genes from which they were derived. That prevents the virus from making more viruses.'"

Comments

Re:first post?

[TrisexualPuppy]

I don't think it was 30 years ago.

Exactly. I talked with one of my contacts at the Atlanta CDC about this. She said that little was said at that point about exactly how they procured this method, but it is something possible only with new technologies that have evolved in the past decade. That, and the limited amount of manpower dedicated to such a project mean that unless you're really lucky, it's going to take the full 30 years.

I wonder how many lives will eventually be saved and what awards will be gotten because of this.

100% effective in FIVE monkeys

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

Before you start declaring a CURE!!! look at the number of test subjects. Preventing death in five monkeys is not exactly a cure. It's a very promising start, but they need to test it in non-infected humans to make sure it's not going to cause some odd problems and to get max dosages worked out.

Ebola's death rate is so high that this treatment would have to be extremely dangerous to keep it form being used. Death rates are in the 80-90% range now, so if it dropped them to even just 50% it's worth a large risk.

Re:100% effective in FIVE monkeys

[phoenix321]

A mortality rate of 80% of out 5 monkeys, 4 would have died. If 0 died in the vaccine group, it is a pretty significant finding.

Maybe someone here can be bothered to draw up the exact significance, but I'm pretty sure it will be a percentage surprisingly high for a sample of 5 individuals, since the mortality is so high to begin with.

For example with rabies, the mortality rate is a solid 100%. Managing to save even 1 infected individual is nothing short of a monumental achievement, as in all recorded history, we only have 3 survivors total, with Jeanna Giese being the first and the 2 others with the course derived from her treatment. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_protocol - so these 3 survivor make up a pretty high significance when compared to 0 before.