Solutions

WIRED     by   Erika Check Hayden                                                                              Dec. 23, 2014

KENEMA, Sierra Leone—Mohammed Sankoh Yillah, an outreach worker, spent days in the Ebola ward caring for his sister, nurse Mbalu Fonnie. After Fonnie died in July, Yillah tested positive for the virus. He was transported to another hospital for treatment, but asked to come back to Kenema to die.

But Yillah survived.

Today Yillah sits with four colleagues in an office, discussing a new research project. The study is collecting information about survivors like him. The hope is that the study might help explain why he and others beat Ebola, while their friends and colleagues—Alex, Mbalu—did not.

Epidemiologist Lina Moses runs the meeting. Her colleagues back at Tulane University, she says, hope to analyze blood samples from survivors; she collected 29 such samples here in November. “What they want to know in the laboratory,” she says, “is what kind of antibodies Mohammed Yillah has that helped him to survive Ebola.”

GENOMEWEB                                                                                                                        Dec. 22, 2014
NEW YORK -- Tekmira Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has signed a deal that will support the clinical testing of its experimental Ebola therapy designed against the strain of the virus behind the outbreak in West Africa.

Tekmira has long been developing an siRNA-based Ebola drug called TKM-Ebola, but a Phase I study of that agent was suspended by US regulators until the company could provide additional safety data. Earlier this year, Tekmira management indicated that that trial might not restart as early as anticipated since the firm had begun focusing on a version specifically for the Guinea strain of the Ebola virus, which is driving the ongoing outbreak.

Tekmira said it has now inked a manufacturing and clinical trial agreement with the University of Oxford to provide the new drug, called TKM-Ebola-Guinea, for clinical trials in West Africa. The university is the representative of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium, which will be testing TKM-Ebola-Guinea in infected individuals with funding from the Wellcome Trust.

TIME MAGAZINE by ALexandra Sifferlin                                                                            Dec. 19, 2014

In 2015, the three Ebola-affected countries will start offering cash payments for families hit by Ebola, as well as survivors having trouble re-acclimating to society out of stigma for the disease.

Dudu Kromah’s husband died from Ebola. She is looking after ten children, many of them orphans including a 3-month-old baby. She has no income. Carly Learson—Carly Learson / UNDP

Every aspect of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone’s societies have taken a hit from Ebola, and the disease has shocked what were once fragile but growing economies....Every aspect of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone’s societies

“We are seeing a backwards slide of development of about 10 years,” says Boaz Paldi, chief of media and advocacy at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “The outlook is not good. We are fearful for these countries.”

NBC NEWS by Maggie Fox                                                                                                      Dec. 19, 2014

German doctors think they have another possible drug to add to the Ebola treatment pipeline. It's one already shown to be safe and in trials to treat heart attack victims.

The drug, called FX06, is made using a natural human blood-clotting protein called fibrin. The hope is it can help reduce the leaking of blood vessels that can seriously threaten people with advanced Ebola infections.

The team at Frankfurt University Hospital say it may have helped save a Ugandan doctor they treated, although they note it failed to save a second patient.

Nonetheless, it should be tested, they wrote in the Lancet medical journal.

"Even though the patient was critically ill, we were able to support him long enough for his body to start antibody production and for the virus to be cleared by his body's defenses," said Dr. Timo Wolf, who helped lead the research team. "FX06 could potentially be a valuable agent in contribution to supportive therapy."

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