EXISTING HEART DRUG COULD CURE EBOLA

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have made a breakthrough that can lead to a cure for the deadly Ebola virus currently sweeping through West Africa, media reports said.

The university has said the experts stumbled across an existing drug used in the treatment of severe heart disease, which could be adapted to fight the contagious Ebola virus, Xinhua reported Saturday.

A team from the Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging Infections, based at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection and Global Health, have been investigating new ways to treat Ebola.

In collaboration with Public Health England, the team has been looking at how Ebola virus hijacks proteins inside cells, and then seeking ways to stop this from happening.

They looked at what proteins inside a cell are critical for the functions of Ebola virus and are hijacked by the virus to help with infection.

One of the proteins they have targeted is known as VP24. This protein disrupts signalling in infected human cells and disrupts the body’s immune system and the fight against the virus.

From there, the Liverpool team looked at whether any existing drugs already block the function of this particular protein. They found the heart drug ouabain, when administered, can reduce the virus’ replication.

The team said further tests need to be done, but as the heart drug is already in use, much of the work to test whether it is safe for humans has already been completed.

This, they said, would potentially speed up the time it could take get the treatment to Ebola patients in need.

The study was led by Julian Hiscox from the university’s Institute of Infection and Global Health and Roger Hewson at Public Health England.

“This study shows how existing therapeutics can be identified and potentially repurposed for anti-viral therapy. The technique of using existing and tested drugs for a different purpose can save considerable time and ultimately, lives,” Xinhua quoted Hiscox as saying.

The Ebola outbreak, by far the largest in the nearly 40-year history of the disease, has infected 4,269 people and killed 2,400 this year in three West African countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the WHO.

EBOLA GENOME BROWSER ONLINE TO AID RESEARCHERS RESPONSE TO CRISIS

The UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute late Tuesday (Sept. 30) released a new Ebola genome browser to assist global efforts to develop a vaccine and antiserum to help stop the spread of the Ebola virus.

The team led by University of California, Santa Cruz researcher Jim Kent worked around the clock for the past week, communicating with international partners to gather and present the most current data. The Ebola virus browser aligns five strains of Ebola with two strains of the related Marburg virus. Within these strains, Kent and other members of the UC Santa Cruz Genome Browser team have aligned 148 individual viral genomes, including 102 from the current West Africa outbreak.

UC Santa Cruz has established the UCSC Ebola Genome Portal with links to the new Ebola genome browser as well as links to all the relevant scientific literature on the virus.

"Ebola has been one of my biggest fears ever since I learned about it in my first microbiology class in 1997," said Kent, who 14 years ago created the first working draft of the human genome. "We need a heroic worldwide effort to contain Ebola. Making an informatics resource like the genome browser for Ebola researchers is the least we could do."

Scientists around the world can access the open-source browser to compare genetic changes in the virus genome and areas where it remains the same. The browser allows scientists and researchers from drug companies, other universities, and governments to study the virus and its genomic changes as they seek a solution to halt the epidemic.

The release of the new Ebola genome browser comes as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday confirmed the first case of Ebola in the United States.

The Ebola browser was started shortly after a phone conversation between Kent and his sister, an epidemiologist at the CDC, who spoke of how she and her staff were consumed with Ebola research in the face of the escalating crisis. UC Santa Cruz Professor Phil Berman, an HIV specialist, had also asked Kent for help with his efforts in developing a vaccine for Ebola.

Kent asked his supervisor, UC Santa Cruz bioinformatics researcher David Haussler, if he could divert his team to Ebola work. Haussler replied with an enthusiastic affirmative, and they pulled together a team of UC Santa Cruz bioinformatics scientists that, within a week, was able to create a fully functional Ebola genome browser.

"The incredible speed with which this group was able to assemble all the genetic information about Ebola and make it available to the world shows what a great team Jim Kent has assembled," Haussler said.

In June 2000, Kent and Haussler released the first working draft of the human genome sequence on the web. Two months later, Kent developed the UCSC Genome Browser, which has become an essential resource to biomedical science.

In a similar marshaling of forces in the face of a worldwide threat 11 years ago, UC Santa Cruz researchers created a SARS virus browser.

SINGLE DOSE NEEDLE FREE EBOLA VACCINE

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that a single-dose, needleless Ebola vaccine given to primates through their noses and lungs protected them against infection for at least 21 weeks. A vaccine that doesn't require an injection could help prevent passing along infections through unintentional pricks.

They report the results of their study on macaques in the ACS journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

Maria A. Croyle and colleagues note that in the current Ebola outbreak, which is expected to involve thousands more infections and deaths before it's over, an effective vaccine could help turn the tide. Even better, taking the needle out of the inoculation process could also help prevent the accidental transmission of Ebola, as well as other diseases, such as HIV, that might otherwise spread from unintentional needle pricks and unsafe handling of medical wastes. Other vaccines are currently under development to fight the virus, but they require an injection. Croyle's team tested an adenovirus-based Ebola vaccine using a respiratory delivery route.

The researchers gave a novel formulation of an Ebola vaccine to several macaques then exposed them to the virus more than four months later. All three of the animals that received the vaccine through the nose and via a catheter into their airways did not fall ill. However, since special equipment and training are required for the current respiratory delivery method, the scientists conclude that further work is needed if this formula, or an under-the-tongue version, is to be used eventually in large-scale immunization campaigns.

FIRST EBOLA CASE DIAGNOSED IN THE US

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed today, through laboratory tests, the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the United States in a person who had traveled to Dallas, Texas from Liberia. The patient did not have symptoms when leaving West Africa, but developed symptoms approximately four days after arriving in the U.S. on Sept. 20.

The person fell ill on Sept. 24 and sought medical care at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas on Sept. 26. After developing symptoms consistent with Ebola, he was admitted to hospital on Sept. 28. Based on the person's travel history and symptoms, CDC recommended testing for Ebola. The medical facility isolated the patient and sent specimens for testing at CDC and at a Texas lab participating in the CDC's Laboratory Response Network. CDC and the Texas Health Department reported the laboratory test results to the medical center to inform the patient. Local public health officials have begun identifying close contacts of the person for further daily monitoring for 21 days after exposure. A CDC team was dispatched to Dallas this morning.

"Ebola can be scary. But there's all the difference in the world between the U.S. and parts of Africa where Ebola is spreading. The United States has a strong health care system and public health professionals who will make sure this case does not threaten our communities," said CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "While it is not impossible that there could be additional cases associated with this patient in the coming weeks, I have no doubt that we will contain this."

The ill person did not exhibit symptoms of Ebola during the flights from West Africa and CDC does not recommend that people on the same commercial airline flights undergo monitoring, as Ebola is only contagious if the person is experiencing active symptoms. The person reported developing symptoms several days after the return flight. Anyone concerned about possible exposure may call CDC-Info at 800-CDC-INFO for more information.

CDC recognizes that even a single case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States raises concerns. Knowing the possibility exists, medical and public health professionals across the country have been preparing to respond. CDC and public health officials in Texas are taking precautions to identify people who have had close personal contact with the ill person and health care professionals have been reminded to use meticulous infection control at all times.

We do know how to stop Ebola's further spread: thorough case finding, isolation of ill people, contacting people exposed to the ill person, and further isolation of contacts if they develop symptoms. The U.S. public health and medical systems have had prior experience with sporadic cases of diseases such as Ebola. In the past decade, the United States had 5 imported cases of Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (VHF) diseases similar to Ebola (1 Marburg, 4 Lassa). None resulted in any transmission in the U.S.

CDC has been anticipating and preparing for a case of Ebola in the United States. We have been:

Enhancing surveillance and laboratory testing capacity in states to detect cases

Developing guidance and tools for health departments to conduct public health investigations

Providing recommendations for healthcare infection control and other measures to prevent disease spread

Providing guidance for flight crews, Emergency Medical Services units at airports, and Customs and Border Protection officers about reporting ill travelers to CDC

Disseminating up-to-date information to the general public, international travelers, and public health partners

The data health officials have seen in the past few decades since Ebola was discovered indicates that it is not spread through casual contact or through the air. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure to objects such as needles that have been contaminated. The illness has an average 8-10 day incubation period (although it ranges from 2 to 21 days); CDC recommends monitoring exposed people for symptoms a complete 21 days. People are not contagious after exposure unless they develop symptoms.

EBOLA OUTBREAK COULD INFECT 20 000 PEOPLE

The deadly Ebola  outbreak hitting four West African nations could eventually infect more than 20,000 people, the World Health Organization announced Thursday.

Already the largest Ebola outbreak ever, the viral infection has produced 3,069 cases so far and killed 1,552 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Nearly 40 percent of the total number of reported cases have occurred in the past three weeks, the health agency said.

This far outstrips any historic Ebola outbreak in numbers. The largest outbreak in the past was about 400 cases," Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO's assistant director-general for emergency operations, said at a news conference, the Associated Press reported.

Part of the problem, he said, is that the outbreak is occurring in large cities and broad sections of the affected countries.

What we are seeing today, in contrast to previous Ebola outbreaks: multiple hotspots within these countries -- not a single, remote forested area, the kind of environments that have been tackled in the past. And then not multiple hotspots within one country, but international disease," Aylward said.

In response to the crisis, the U.N. health agency unveiled a battle plan Thursday that calls for stopping Ebola transmissions within six to nine months, while "rapidly managing the consequences of any further international spread," the WHO said in a news release.

The plan calls for spending $489 million over the next nine months and enlisting 750 international workers and 12,000 national workers, the APreported.

Also Thursday, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it would begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine in humans next week. It will be tested in 20 healthy adults in Maryland to see if it's safe and able to produce an appropriate immune system response.

The vaccine was developed by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy  and Infectious Diseases and drug maker GlaxoSmithKline. It will also be tested on healthy volunteers in Great Britain and the West African nations of Gambia and Mali, the NIH said.

Earlier this week, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and  Prevention  visited Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where he acknowledged that the virus currently has the "upper hand" in the outbreak.

"Lots of hard work is happening, lots of good things are happening," Frieden said during a meeting in Liberia, the AP reported. "But the virus still has the upper hand."

"Ebola doesn't spread by mysterious means, we know how it spreads," he said. "So we have the means to stop it from spreading, but it requires tremendous attention to every detail."

Unlike diseases such as tuberculosis or flu , Ebola isn't spread by breathing air from an infected person. Transmission requires direct contact with blood, secretions, organs or other body fluids of infected living or dead persons or animals, according to the WHO.

Symtoms

Ebola, one of the world's most virulent diseases, kills up to 90 percent of people it infects. Symptoms include a sudden fever intense weakness muscle pain,headache  and  sore throat  This is followed by vomiting and diarrhea ,  rash.  poor kidney and liver  function and, in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

Many of those killed during the current Ebola outbreak have been health care workers.

Prevention

According to the CDC, health care workers must be able to recognize a case of Ebola and be ready to use "isolation precautions or barrier nursing techniques." Barrier nursing techniques include:

Wearing protective clothing, such as masks, gloves, gowns, and goggles;

Using infection-control measures, including complete equipment sterilization and routine use of disinfectant;

Isolating patients with Ebola from contact with unprotected persons.

The aim of these techniques is to avoid contact with the blood or secretions of an infected patient, the CDC said.