SAN DIEGO, California — On Tuesday, the nation learned that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has isolated a man now confirmed as the first Ebola case diagnosed within the U.S. With little early information, what remedies will doctors seek to use–and will the ZMapp treatment serum used to treat two American aid workers be made vailable?
Dr. Kent Brantly and aid worker Nancy Writebol were each brought back to the U.S. from Liberia after contracting the Ebola virus. They were treated with the experimental ZMapp drug, developed based on research out of La Jolla, California.
Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. has been working on developing ZMapp with LeafBio of San Diego, Defyrus Inc. of Toronto, the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada, according to KPBS San Diego. ZMapp is described as an “antibody cocktail,” but it is yet unknown whether the drug was the crucial remedy for Brantly and Writebol. The drug had reportedly not been tested for safety on humans before being administered to the two American aid workers.
While Brantly and Writebol survived, a Liberian doctor that received the drug did not, as Breitbart News previously reported. In a news conference last month, President Barack Obama suggested that ZMapp would not be provided to those African countries suffering most from the outbreak, saying that such assistance would be “premature.”
Little information is being released about the Texas patient at this time, but reports say that the person traveled from Africa to the U.S., and that relatives here may have been exposed.
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