An outbreak of the generally fatal Ebola virus has been getting progressively worse since it was first reported in February. According to information released by the WHO on Wednesday last week, as of Aug. 18, there was a total of 15 recorded cases of Ebola in Nigeria, in which four people died, and in four countries in West Africa — Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria — there have been a total of 2,473 cases, of which 1,350 people have died.
The 1995 disaster movie Outbreak was about an outbreak in a small town in the US of an Ebola-type virus originating from Zaire, resulting in many deaths. The script said that the virus was an infectious disease passed on through monkeys.
According to media reports, US doctor Kent Brantly and aid worker Nancy Writebol — both of whom contracted Ebola in Liberia while treating patients of the disease — have recovered from the virus after being treated with the experimental drug ZMapp. In Brantly’s case, the recovery was very quick, leading to much interest in the development of anti-Ebola pharmaceuticals.
San Diego-based company Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc developed ZMapp only last year, with funding from the US’ National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense’s Threat Reduction Agency. The company, established in 2003, has a staff of only nine.
ZMapp was tested on eight monkeys that had been infected with the Ebola virus, and the drug was shown to be highly effective. Four of the monkeys were administered the drug within 24 hours of being infected, and all of them survived, while two of the remaining four monkeys lived, having been given the drug within 48 hours of being infected.
However, as the drug had yet to be tested on humans, it was not initially administered in Africa, despite the hundreds of deaths there. It was only used when a US doctor became infected, as an emergency measure.
ZMapp is a specific antigen targeting the Ebola virus, comprising three humanized monoclonal antibodies developed from antibodies originally incubated in three mice infected with the virus.
Brantly showed much-praised courage in insisting on forgoing the sole sample of the drug while in Africa, and having it administered instead to his colleague Writebol, despite the 90 percent risk of fatality from the disease. Last week, Brantly and Writebol were discharged from Emory University hospital, fully recovered from the virus, in what was testament to the wonders of modern medicine in the success of ZMapp.
The research teams and medical staff at the US’ Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Emory University hospital have come together in the face of this terrible disease. Despite two US medical professionals having already been taken ill with the Ebola virus while providing medical treatment in west Africa, the medical community in the US, with its advanced medical skills and its humanitarianism, has not retreated from the battlefield.
The CDC in Atlanta has sent 10 medical staff to west Africa and is preparing to send another 18 in order to provide assistance to the WHO, which is coordinating the relief efforts there. Taiwan’s own CDC will be sending two medical experts to Africa, as indeed it should.
Science and knowledge have made it possible for humans to fight this outbreak from across great distances. This is, indeed, what disease prevention is all about.
Mayo Kuo is a Taiwan-based pediatrician; his brother, Max Kuo, is a US-based pediatrician.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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