Plasma from EBOLA servivers!!

[bimetalaupt]

Can blood from recovered Ebola patients be used to help cure people who come down with Ebola? This is a question that is taxing the minds of scientists in Antwerp. With EU funding Belgium's Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (ITM) is now to head an international consortium that will examine if plasma taken from recovered Ebola patients can be used to help cure people who become infected with the disease.




The international Ebola Tx consortium is responding to an urgent appeal from the European Commission for scientific projects that could help in the fight against Ebola. Apart from Belgium's Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp the consortium includes the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the universities of Oxford and Liverpool and the Paris-based Pasteur Institute.

The European Union is releasing 2.9 million euros for this ground-breaking project that will examine the safety and efficacy of treatment using blood and plasma. The ITM will closely collaborate with the Flemish Red Cross that possesses considerable experience in collecting and treating blood.

The procedure that involves the use of antibodies from recovered patients is described as simple and if it proves to be successful it could be widely implemented in West Africa soon.

With the increased population in the USA and West Africa of pt that have 100% recovered: the plasma could be a God sent for new patients and income for some very poor.

Just a thought,

BiMetalAuPt

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

This is great news for sure Bruce, especially for the developed countries of the world.

The problem with Africa is that they are already surpassing their infrastructure - by far - and there is essentially no way to build it up fast enough to get the outbreak under control. This two year old girl from Mali that came in contact with at least 300 people on her 1000 mile journey, is just one example of a person traveling through the porous boarders of west Africa. Thousands more have done the same.

At this point all the focus should be on containing it to west Africa. The longer the WHO and these other health organizations disregard this line of thought, the bigger the risk becomes for the rest of the world. Especially when you factor in that the US military has studies that suggest Ebola is like influenza A, in that low temperatures and humidity could lead to it be aerosolized.

God bless.

[dothedd]

The US Is Stockpiling Ebola Survivors’ Plasma to Treat Future Patients 

BY KATIE M. PALMER 11.24.14

Emory University Hospital will begin stockpiling blood plasma from Ebola survivors, treated with a pathogen inactivation system that’s never been used before in the United States, the company that developed the technology announced on Friday. So far, the US has had some amazing success in curing Ebola, possibly thanks to experimental plasma treatments. Drawn from survivors, the stuff comes enriched in antibodies that could help to fight off the disease—but it also has the potential to carry other diseases, like malaria, that are common in west Africa where Ebola is raging. The new system will kill off any extra contaminants that may be lurking in this potentially live-saving serum.

It’s the same one, Cerus Corporation’s Intercept system, that will be used in a Gates Foundation-funded study of Ebola treatments in West Africa. The pathogen-killing molecule at the heart of the system is amotosalen, part of a class of three-ringed molecules called psoralens. They’re the compounds in lime that cause what some doctors call “Mexican beer dermatitis”: Get a squirt of the citrus on your skin when you push it into your Corona, spend a few hours on the beach in the sunlight, and the molecules interact with the UV rays to give you a nasty rash.

CONTINUED: www.wired.com/2014/11/feds-stockpiling-ebola-survivors-plasma-treat-future-patients/

[dothedd]

An interesting link....

file:///C:/Users/Barbara/Downloads/Oct2014EPIReport%20(1).pdf

[dothedd]

Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a Hazard and a Hero 

FEB. 25, 2015


NEW YORK TIMES


www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/nyregion/craig-spencer-new-york-ebola-doctor-speaks-out.html?rref=science&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Science&pgtype=article