Global Health

FORBES   by   David Kroll                                                                                          March 1, 2015

The widely-discussed antibody cocktail, ZMapp, is finally going to be tested under standardized, controlled conditions for its safety and efficacy in Ebola virus disease-infected patients in Liberia and, potentially, the United States.

Late Friday, the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) announced the launch of a randomized trial in up to 200 patient volunteers with confirmed Ebola virus infections.

The two-arm study will compare supportive standard of care with or without three intravenous infusions of ZMapp spaced three days apart. This is the same dosing regimen published in Nature that protected 18 of 18 monkeys when given up to five days after experimental infection.

LeafBio, the commercial arm of San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, announced concomitantly that the FDA had approved their IND for this trial. The three antibodies that comprise ZMapp target both distinct and overlapping parts of the Ebola virus glycoprotein (GP) that it uses to infect humans.

Detailed account of the aftermath of murder by local villagers in Guinea of eight persons who came to teach about Ebola

WASHINGTON POST  by Amy Brittain                                                                             March 1, 2015
WOMEY, Guinea — The lecture about the dangers of Ebola had just begun, but the village had heard enough. A group of women started chanting, to warn the others against the visitors, “They are coming to kill you.” A mob of men masked their faces, waved machetes and rushed toward the speakers. Stones began to fly.

Thousands of Womey residents fled after the killings when Guinea’s military invaded and looted the vllage. More than a dozen died from malnutrition after living for months in the surrounding bushland. (Jane Hahn/For The Washington Post)

REUTERS    Feb. 28, 2015

FREETOWN --Sierra Leone's Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana said on Saturday that he had placed himself in a 21-day quarantine after one of his bodyguards died of Ebola amid a worrying recent surge in new infections in the West African nation....

Sam-Sumana's bodyguard John Koroma died early this week.

"I have decided to be put under quarantine because I do not want to take chances and I want to lead by example," the vice president told Reuters. "I am very well and showing no signs of illness."

Sam-Sumana said his entire staff will also be placed under observation and anyone showing symptoms of the disease would be tested.

The vice president is the country's first senior government figure to subject himself to a voluntary quarantine. However, officials in neighboring Liberia, including the chief medical officer and transport minister, were placed under observation late last year.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/28/us-health-ebola-leone-idUSKBN0LW0WQ20150228

REUTERS                                                           Feb. 26, 2015

Diagnostics company Corgenix Medical Corp said on Thursday U.S. health regulators had approved its rapid Ebola test for emergency use, in response to the world's worst outbreak of the virus that killed more than 10,000 so far.

The company's ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test, which involves putting a drop of blood on a paper strip and waiting for at least 15 minutes for a reaction, was cleared by the World Health Organization last week.

The test is less accurate than the standard test, which has a turnaround time of 12-24 hours, but is easy to perform and does not require electricity. It is able to correctly identify about 92 percent of Ebola-infected patients and 85 percent of those not infected with the virus, the WHO said.

The WHO is still assessing four or five other rapid test candidates.

Read complete story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/26/us-health-ebola-testing-idUSKBN0LU1OO20150226