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The World Health Organization: Ebola virus treatment in trouble
2014-08-04
来源：转载自第三方
Although there are several vaccines and therapies for Ebola, they are at different stages of development and stalled due to lack of funding and international demand.
Data from WHO on July 30 shows that there were 1323 cases of Ebola diagnosed and suspected cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, 729 deaths.
Medical aid workers are now fighting the Ebola virus that ravaged West Africa. But the death seems to be brought by the visitors wearing biochemical protective clothing. Most of the infected people who entered the temporary hospital died, while the families of the deceased were banned from dealing with their bodies. Rumors began to spread: the newcomers were collecting organs and carrying out lethal experiments.
As a result, people began to flee around, which makes the original bad situation worse. The Ebola epidemic is the largest ever recorded, killing more than 670 people in West Africa, and the authorities say there are more than 400 other people infected with the virus. Moreover, there is no sign of any relaxatio
Doctors can not provide effective treatment for the infected. Scarcity of staff in the clinics must barely sustain isolation of infected persons, seek and isolate their families, and educate the public on how to avoid spreading the virus. Despite the existence of several vaccines and therapies for Ebola, they are at different experimental stages and are stalled due to lack of funding and international demand. Even if they are moving forward, these treatments will take years, not months, to reach people in distress.
In the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), according to virologist Heinz Feldmann and other researchers’s view, this situation seems to have been avoided. In 2005, he studied a vaccine platform based on herpes simplex virus (VSV), which produced an Ebola virus vaccine and demonstrated utility in rhesus monkey research.
But Feldmann said that because of funding constraints, they can not carry out the next step——in healthy people to test the safety of the vaccine. "Ebola is not a serious global public health problem compared to malaria or HIV," he said, making it difficult to attract public and private funds to invest in related vaccines and drug development.
"The current anti-Ebola virus is an old-fashioned public health initiative," says Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. "Developing a vaccine would be a great thing, but it's not easy, and do not know who you can experiment with. "
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also announced on July 31 that it will work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin human trials of the Ebola vaccine as early as September. The Ebola vaccine is currently working well in primate trials, says Anthony Fussy, head of the NIH's Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There are a number of agencies in the country to intensify the development of vaccines and drugs against Ebola virus. In March, the University of Texas received $26 million in funding for three Ebola vaccines, each of which has nearly 100% efficacy in monkeys.
The VSV vaccine appears to be a promising option because it can be used both for prevention and after a patient's infection. In 2009, it was used in a German laboratory technician who accidentally stabbed himself with a needle, which may carry the Ebola virus. Although it was not clear whether she had been infected with Ebola virus, the technician survived and did not suffer any side effects of the vaccine. "Everyone in my lab will be a volunteer for the vaccine," says Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the University of Texas Medical School, which also focuses on Ebola virus drug development.
The NIAID Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland, developed a vaccine that carries chimpanzee adenovirus, similar to the virus that causes the common cold. The research agency hopes to begin testing the vaccine in healthy people in early September. Barney Graham, deputy director of the center, said his agency was approaching the FDA to speed up the approval process, which was reinforced by the West African outbreak.
Biotech's Ebola virus research and development work was slow, but the status will be changed. Mapp Biopharmaceuticals Inc. of San Diego, Calif., Is testing monoclonal antibody combinations against the virus, and hopes to conduct human trials quickly.
On the other hand, the US Department of Defense allocated 140 million US dollars, Canada Tekmira pharmaceutical companies are testing a treatment called TKM-Ebola. The therapy uses microRNA molecules to bind the virus and uses it as a target of destruction. In January, the company has begun testing the vaccine in humans. But on July 3, FDA suspended the approval of the study until the company can provide more data on how the therapy works.
This practice of FDA received some criticism, opponents believe that the Ebola epidemic is the virus was found to be the most serious, the management should be released by green light. Tekmira Pharma says it has confidence to start the experiment again.
Armand Sprecher, a public health expert at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said the outbreak was "unfortunate". "It could be a little better after a year or two."
The FDA may approve a therapy because of the "sympathetic use" principle, but the process must be consistent with the rules of the host country. "A country needs these things and we can not force them," says Gene Olinger, a virologist at the MRIGlobal Institute. "We have to follow our internal drug development and testing standards."
In early February this year, the first outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in southeastern Guinea, the epidemic quickly spread to hundreds of kilometers outside the capital and Liberia and other neighboring countries. In early April, the epidemic was slowed down, but it soon re-emerged. WHO believes that the distribution of the geographical situation from the epidemic point of view, the Ebola haemorrhagic fever epidemic in West Africa beyond the scope of the previous Ebola epidemic, but the epidemic has not yet out of control.
According to WHO's latest update on 30 July, there were 1,233 confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 729 deaths. But experts believe that the number of infected people is still growing, it must be in the three West African countries to make greater efforts to seek measures to control the epidemic.
Background link
In 1976, a pestilence erupted in a village on the Ebola River in northern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The rapid development of the disease and nearly 90 per cent of the death rate shocked the world, and the plague pathogen was subsequently named Egypt Bora virus. Ebola virus through the blood, saliva and other body fluids, which led to Ebola hemorrhagic fever is the most known viral toxicity.
This outbreak of Ebola virus, which began in Guinea, is the largest documented number of outbreaks so far. In response to the worsening Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the US government issued the highest-level travel warning on 31 July asking people to avoid unnecessary trips to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. At present, the US government in addition to warning people not to the epidemic, but also in West Africa to help prevent sick passengers boarding to his land.
Ebola epidemic has also aroused great concern in Britain and France. The British Government Crisis Response Committee on July 30 to convene an emergency meeting to discuss once the epidemic in the UK should take urgent measures. France has sent a team of experts to the epidemic area and will conduct a comprehensive multi-sectoral meeting to assess the risk of the outbreak this weekend. As early as the beginning of July, the British Public Health Bureau has asked doctors to pay close attention to suspected Ebola virus infection, especially those who have just returned from traveling in West Africa, such as suspected cases should be promptly reported.
France has maintained coordination and cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the governments of the countries concerned since the outbreak of a large-scale Ebola epidemic in West Africa, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a press conference on July 30. The French National Institutes of Health and Medicine, the Institut Pasteur and the Mérieux Institutes have collaborated in the development of a mobile laboratory capable of approaching Ebola sources in a safe manner. The mobile laboratory will complement the Pasteur Institute's laboratory in Dakar, Senegal, and a European laboratory to carry out monitoring.
But World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartle said there was little likelihood of an outbreak of Ebola outside of West Africa. "Ebola virus is not easy to spread, usually Ebola virus and the epidemic in West Africa, West Africa outside the Ebola epidemic is unlikely."
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