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Anti-Ebola Drug ZMapp Makes Clean Sweep: 18 of 18 Monkeys Survive Infection
Scientific American reports, based on a study published today in Nature, that ZMapp, the drug that has been used to treat seven patients during the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, can completely protect monkeys against the virus, research has found. ... The drug — a cocktail of three purified immune proteins, or monoclonal antibodies, that target the Ebola virus — has been given to seven people: two US and three African health-care workers, a British nurse and a Spanish priest. The priest and a Liberian health-care worker who got the drug have since died. There is no way to tell whether ZMapp has been effective in the patients who survived, because they received the drug at different times during the course of their disease and received various levels of medical care.
NPR also has an interview with study lead Gary Kobinger, who says that (very cautious) human trials are in the works, and emphasizes the difficulites of producing the drug in quantity.
with Ebola control is health care infra-structure in affected countries. A far cry from what would be necessary to contain further spread. There was one report on a radio station that there are like 10 doctors in a whole country (Africa, forgot the name).
Even if you have the best drug available defeating the virus in a day, it won't help at all under those circumstances - spread by body fluids from infected individuals.
The outcome can only be guessed...
I think they should be volunteers at the very least.
Given the 90% mortality rate of ebola, I suspect nearly anyone infected will want to volunteer. The problem is that the drug can't be mass produced yet. 10s of doses takes months to produce using the current method, which is genetically modified tobacco plants (bit of irony there). A massive influx of resource is needed to ramp up production.