Atlanta Hospital Admits Second American With Ebola

[CrossCuT]

Correction from my earlier post: Doctor Brantly was also given the experimental drug. It appears they are both doing well!!!! Thank God! I hope this means the drug helped and that its one stop closer to helping all those in Africa!

 

 

Washington (AFP) - The American doctor who became ill with the Ebola virus while treating patients in Liberia will be released from a US hospital soon, a Christian aid group said Thursday.

"Dr. Kent Brantly is doing very well and hopes to be released sometime in the near future," said a statement from Samaritan's Purse.

It did not give any specifics on timing.

Brantly, 33, and Writebol, 60, were given an experimental drug treatment and were airlifted back to the United States. Writebol is also said to be improving and is being treated at the same hospital as Brantly.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/us-doctor-ebola-released-hospital-soon-174919099.html
 

[CrossCuT]

A new health care facility for Ebola patients in Liberia was attacked by some of the citizens who fear the spread of Ebola. 

 

 

Ebola patients fled during an attack at a health care facility in Monrovia, Liberia, on Saturday, Liberian National Police spokesman Sam Collins told CNN on Sunday.

All patients who ran away had Ebola, and some chose to stay at the facility, Collins said.

The assailants stole mattresses and equipment, he said, adding that no one was injured in the incident and the attackers were not trying to free the patients; rather, they did not want the quarantine there. The assailants were using weapons but not wielding guns, according to Collins.

"It was an attack from people afraid of Ebola," Collins told CNN. "Everybody is afraid."

 

 

Also, the experimental drug ZMapp is being tested on some individuals. This is what Doctors Brantly and Writebol received. 

 

 

MONROVIA - Health care workers in Liberia have administered three doses of the rare, experimental drug ZMapp to three doctors suffering from Ebola, two medical workers in Monrovia told Reuters. Liberia, the West African country with the highest death toll from the virus at 413, received three doses of the serum in a special consignment this week. Doctors Zukunis Ireland and Abraham Borbor from Liberia and Dr. Aroh Cosmos Izchukwu from Nigeria are the first Africans to receive the treatment. The drug has been administered to two American healthcare workers and a Spanish priest, all previously working in Liberian hospitals. The U.S. workers' health improved but the priest died.

 

"Three doctors are currently being administered treatment with the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp. Treatment began on Thursday evening," said Dr. Billy Johnson, chief medical officer of John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia where two of the doctors served. A second healthcare worker at the Elwa center which is housing the sick doctors confirmed that they were on their third day of a six-day ZMapp treatment. Details of their condition aren’t known. 

 

 

 

Info about ZMapp from Wiki:

 

 

ZMapp is an experimental biopharmaceutical drug comprising three humanized monoclonal antibodies under development as a treatment for Ebola virus disease.^[1] The drug was first tested in humans during the 2014 West Africa Ebola virus outbreak.

 

 

In the US, the FDA's Animal Efficacy Rule can be used, often in combination with a Phase I clinical trial, to demonstrate reasonable safety for a drug, to obtain permission to treat urgently sick people with the drug under the FDA's Expanded access program. The Animal Efficacy Rule exists because the normal path for testing the safety and efficacy of drugs is not possible for diseases caused by dangerous pathogens or toxins.^[13][12] The FDA has allowed two drugs, ZMapp and an RNA interference drug called "TKM-Ebola", to be used in people infected with Ebola under these programs.^[14]

 

 

Since ZMapp is not yet tested enough, there is no substantive information to support usage in humans.^[24] In light of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, an expert panel from the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on August 12, 2014, "In the particular circumstances of this outbreak, and provided certain conditions are met, the panel reached consensus that it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects, as potential treatment or prevention".^[25]

 

[veritasluxmea]

Correction from my earlier post: Doctor Brantly was also given the experimental drug. It appears they are both doing well!!!! Thank God! I hope this means the drug helped and that its one stop closer to helping all those in Africa!

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/us-doctor-ebola-released-hospital-soon-174919099.html
 

Yep, the company who produced that drug stock's shot up overnight, which means they're going to start doing very well. 

Edited August 19, 2014 by veritasluxmea

[CrossCuT]

GOOD NEWS

 

A press conference was held at Emry University Hospital that confirmed the two American doctors who contracted Ebola are now completely healed and ebola free! They have been discharged from the hospital and allowed to go home with no fear of spreading the disease!

 

The two Doctors were given the experimental drug ZMapp although there is no proof that the treatment helped their healing process or even hindered it. More studies need to be done on the drug. 

 

 

 

Emory University Hospital confirms that Nancy Writebol was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2014. Writebol is one of two patients who have been treated for Ebola virus infection at Emory University Hospital’s Infectious Disease Unit. The second patient, Kent Brantly, MD, is being discharged today, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014.
 
“After a rigorous and successful course of treatment and testing, the Emory Healthcare team has determined that both patients have recovered from the Ebola virus and can return to their families and community without concern for spreading this infection to others,” says Bruce Ribner, MD, director of Emory’s Infectious Disease Unit.
 
Criteria for the patients’ discharges were based on blood and urine diagnostic tests and standard infectious disease protocols. The Emory medical team has maintained its extensive safety procedures throughout this treatment process and is confident that the discharge of these patients poses no public health threat.
 
“The Emory Healthcare team is extremely pleased with Dr. Brantly’s and Mrs. Writebol's recovery, and was inspired by their spirit and strength, as well as by the steadfast support of their families,” says Ribner.

 

 

 

 

In other news, a drug developed was able to cure monkeys with an Ebola related virus. This can help advance studies into helping humans with Ebola.

 

 

A study led by Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology from the University of Texas in the US, tested a new intravenous drug on 16 rhesus macaques infected with the Marburg virus. The researchers involved reported that all 16 monkeys lived after the treatment, whereas five infected monkeys that did not receive the treatment died in just over a week.

 

Edited August 21, 2014 by CrossCuT

[CrossCuT]

http://youtu.be/ftAoelTlKLs

[puellapaschalis]

Definitely good news to be thankful for.

[CrossCuT]

Yes! Its still not proven if the experimental drug worked, but there are a lot of positive advances in developing one that will work! Gives us hope that we might be able to stifle the spread in Africa and maybe even decrease the mortality rate. 

[CrossCuT]

Cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the Congo.  Although oddly enough, this strain is different than the one in West Africa which means there is likely no link between the two outbreaks. 

 

 

The central African nation said its test showed that the strain is different from the one that has killed nearly 1,500 people in the West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

"This epidemic doesn't have any link to that which is now happening in West Africa," Numbi said.

There are five identified strains of the Ebola virus; four are known to cause infections in humans: Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, Sudan ebolavirus, and Taï Forest ebolavirus.

The World Health Organization said the agency's lab is conducting its own confirmation testing that will also determine the strain of the virus found.