No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Our "pub" where you can post about things completely Off Topic or about non-silent PC issues.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Tzupy
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1561
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:47 am
Location: Bucharest, Romania

No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Post by Tzupy » Fri Jul 04, 2014 2:29 pm

Some of you may have read about the latest Ebola outbreak in West Africa. This time it's in cities, and difficult to control.

Image

The official information is that there is no treatment available, but my superficial investigation showed otherwise.
There is enough information available about FDA approved drugs with significant activity against the Ebola virus family
that salvage therapies could be tried, with one of the following: clomiphene, toremiphene, chloroquine, amodiaquine,
ketotifen, diphenoxylate, amiodarone, dronedarone, verapamil. I bolded the most promising ones (90% protection for mice with clomiphene).

I sent an e-mail to Amanpour at CNN about the possible use of clomiphene against Ebola. Maybe it won't end up in the junk / spam folder.
She interviewed Dr. Peter Piot, the discoverer of the Ebola virus, but there was no mention of possible therapies, just containment.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:38 pm

cities = people travel and infect others. Prevously, it was contained in remote villages. I've never heard of possible treatments - just isolate and let it literally die out.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Post by edh » Fri Jul 04, 2014 10:42 pm

When they say there is no treatment, that's because no drug treatment has been indicated for use in humans. It would need to be trialled in humans and with a disease that only ever comes in outbreaks, that's difficult. They would basically have to choose a sample of infected people to try the treatment on.

Ebola is very much a third world disease. It is believed to be carried by bats and can cross to humans and other animals. The bushmeat trade is believed to be one of the most likely points for infection. It is very infectious in the 3rd world as reuse of needles is common and hospitals can't afford all of the infection control measures. Dealing with the dead is also a major area of infection.

NeilBlanchard
Moderator
Posts: 7681
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Maynard, MA, Eaarth
Contact:

Re: No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Post by NeilBlanchard » Sat Jul 05, 2014 2:21 am

It is not the only strange disease - this is a new one to me: chikungunya fever.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... caribbean/

Tzupy
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1561
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:47 am
Location: Bucharest, Romania

Re: No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Post by Tzupy » Thu Aug 14, 2014 8:13 am

After more than a month since I sent that e-mail to CNN, I realized that they don't have any interest in unveiling
a possible treatment for Ebola, since the more people get sick and die, the more important the news they can show.

Here is the evolution of the epidemic, it seems to double each month:

Image

After thinking about the people most interested in a possible treatment, I decided that Medecins sans frontieres might
want this kind of information, so yesterday I sent an e-mail to their London office, the contents is below:

Since you seem to have your hands full with the Ebola epidemic, and any useful information may save lives,
please take a bit of time to read a couple of medical papers that address possible Ebola treatments:
Successful treatment of advanced Ebola virus infection with T-705 (favipiravir) in a small animal model
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 4214000576
FDA-Approved Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators Inhibit Ebola Virus Infection
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955358/
If you already knew about these papers, please disregard this e-mail.
Favipiravir is already in clinical phase 3 testing against influenza, so it's relatively safe to use at the MTD and probably can be sourced
from Medivector in quantities good for 1,000 - 2,000 patients. It probably is expensive at this stage.
http://www.medivector.com/favipiravir/favipiravir1
Clomiphene has been used since the 1960s, is cheap and can be sourced in large quantities.
Other substances (toremiphene, chloroquine, amodiaquine, ketotifen, diphenoxylate, amiodarone, dronedarone, verapamil)
also showed activity against Ebola virus, but not as good as clomiphene (90% protection in mice).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clomiphene
I do believe that a combination treatment Favipiravir + Clomiphene should be effective, considering that by the time most
patients would start treatment, their virus burden will be quite high. Clomiphene might buy enough time (seems to be about 2 days),
by delaying the infection of new cells, for Favipiravir to significantly drop the viremia.
Supportive therapy will still be very important even if a regimen will effectively kill the virus, because the destruction of lymphocytes,
increases in circulating cytokine levels and development of coagulation abnormalities will take some time to return to normal.

Tzupy
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1561
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:47 am
Location: Bucharest, Romania

Re: No treatment for Ebola ... really?

Post by Tzupy » Tue Aug 26, 2014 6:56 am

Some good news, at last: Favipiravir (commercial name 'Avigan') is tested on a UK national who contracted Ebola.
http://www.dailytech.com/Second+ZMappTr ... e36429.htm

Post Reply