WHO approves use of Ebola survivors’ blood for treatment

As the Ebola Virus Disease continue to ravage lives, the World Health Organization (WHO) says the blood of patients who recover from Ebola should be used to treat others while raising global hope with the announcement that Ebola vaccine could be used on the frontline in November when safety data would be ready.

The disease which has not been detected in Cameroon has already claimed 2,105 lives in West Africa, including seven in Nigeria.

The above reassuring announcements are contained in a statement issued by WHO at the weekend following a meeting of a global group of experts to assess the experimental therapies that could contain Ebola.

“150 participants, representing the fields of research and clinical investigation, ethics, legal, regulatory, financing, and data collection, identified several therapeutic and vaccine interventions that should be the focus of priority clinical evaluation at this time.

There was consensus that the use of whole blood therapies and convalescent blood serums needs to be considered as a matter of priority,” the statement said.

It continued: “Safety studies of the 2 most advanced vaccines identified – based on vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-EBO) and chimpanzee adenovirus (ChAd-EBO) – are being initiated in the United States of America and will be started in Africa and Europe in mid-September.

WHO will work with all the relevant stakeholders to accelerate their development and safe use in affected countries. If proven safe, a vaccine could be available in November 2014 for priority use in health-care workers.

“In addition to blood therapies and candidate vaccines, the participants discussed the availability and evidence supporting the use of novel therapeutic drugs, including monoclonal antibodies, RNA-based drugs, and small antiviral molecules. They also considered the potential use of existing drugs approved for other diseases and conditions. Of the novel products discussed, some have shown great promise in monkey models and have been used in a few Ebola patients (although, in too few cases to permit any conclusion about efficacy.”

The endorsement of the blood therapy is based on the medical assumption that people produce antibodies in the blood in an attempt to fight off an Ebola infection. Serum from Ebola survivors should have antibodies that would neutralize infection when given to other patients.

Serum is the liquid part of blood collected after blood is allowed to clot separately by gravitational force.

In theory, those antibodies can be transferred from a survivor into a sick patient to give their immune system a boost. However, large scale data on the effectiveness of the therapy is lacking.

But studies on the 1995 outbreak of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo showed seven out of eight people survived after being given the therapy.