Ebola patient healed with new medication

Ebola patient healed with experimental drug

03/29/2015

Over 10,000 people have died of Ebola infection in West Africa since December 2013. Despite intensive research, there is still no vaccine against the deadly infectious disease. Now a British Ebola patient has been cured with an experimental drug.

British patient discharged from clinic
After treatment with an experimental drug, a British Ebola patient has now been released from the hospital. According to a news agency AFP, her doctor Michael Jacobs in London said: „She has completely recovered and no longer carries the virus in itself.“ According to the information, Anna Cross was the first patient in the world to receive the MIL 77 drug. However, it is unclear whether the drug was actually the cause of the cure, according to the virologist Jonatahn Ball of the University of Nottingham.

Involved in relief work in West Africa
Jacobs reported that the treatment was very good and that no side effects were observed. According to him, MIL 77 is similar to the experimental antibody cocktail ZMapp, which has already been used in some Ebola patients for lack of alternatives. The 25-year-old nurse had become infected with the Ebola virus in a relief effort in Sierra Leone and had been flown back to Britain just over two weeks ago.

Already over 10,200 Ebola dead
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 10,200 people have died of the virus since December 2013 in the West African countries most affected by the disease, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Around 25,000 people in nine countries had become infected. A vaccine or a safe cure for the disease does not exist. Patients are usually treated with typical Ebola symptoms such as fever, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, and internal and external bleeding. (Ad)

Picture: NicoLeHe