The search for an effective treatment or vaccine against the Ebola virus , as it continues to spread throughout West Africa, has become the goal of many laboratories. So far, all that has been achieved has been limited to palliative and barrier care methods to prevent disease transmission.
Now, a study led by Gary Kobinger, a researcher at the Public Health Agency of Canada, has managed to reverse the effects of the virus in a group of non-human primates (rhesus monkeys) using the compound ZMapp . The work has been published in the journal Nature .
This experimental drug, produced with transgenic tobacco, was administered by three divided doses at three-day intervals in 18 rhesus monkeys , even 5 days after being infected, and the results could not be more encouraging: 100% recovered completely , managing to reverse the most arduous symptoms of the disease such as excessive bleeding, elevated liver enzymes and skin rashes.
"The ZMapp still requires human safety testing, but the results confirm that it could be a promising therapeutic option, " says Gary Kobinger, leader of the study.
