Ebola Is Now a Disease We Can Treat(wsj.com)

346 pointsby muriithi7 anni fa31 comments

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ebola-is-now-a-disease-we-can-treat-how-a-cure-emerged-from-a-war-zone-11572446873?mod=rsswn

34 comments

COGlory7 anni fa

Worth pointing out that there are two Ebola vaccines on the market. One is a recombinant vesticular stomavirus, VSV-EBOV, that was engineered to express an Ebola glycoprotein. It was found to be reliably efficient up to 5 days before infection in macaques. It requires only one dose to be effective, because the VSV will replicate in the host to some degree (asymptomatically) and produce a strong immune response.

There is also another 2-dose vaccine that is actually being distributed. I don't know much about it, but requiring a second dose likely means it's a protein fragment or attenuated Ebola virus, likely making it more heat stable and actually easier to distribute. Compliance is an issue, but it has proven effective in ring vaccination usage (vaccination of those around people who have contracted the disease).

There's also been some initiative to grow human Ebola antibodies in crops and distribute those as well.

As usual, the primary challenge to stopping Ebola spread is the political and social climate in the war torn DRC.

est7 anni fa

What happened to the Chinese scientist who developed the Ebola cure ZMapp?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/ebola-henipah-china-...

capableweb7 anni fa

This seems to be the latest news on it:

> In August 2019, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s national health authorities, the World Health Organization, and the National Institutes of Health announced that they would stop using ZMapp, along with all other Ebola treatments except REGN-EB3 and mAb114, in their ongoing clinical trials, citing the higher mortality rates of patients not treated with REGN-EB3 and mAb114

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp#Use_during_the_2014%E2%8...

So seems it's just used in some cases today.

billfruit7 anni fa

There was some news regarding the use of malariotherapy for Ebola, indicating some promise, from couple of years ago. Did not hear any more about it since then.

dielll7 anni fa

paywall

justboxing7 anni fa

[flagged]

dang7 anni fa

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

The paywall issue has been discussed extensively. If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the threads.

This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

windsurfer7 anni fa

Just clear your site cookies and refresh.

rb8087 anni fa

which one lol. My browser says its using 243, just incredible.

windsurfer7 anni fa

On Firefox I just had to clear the *.wsj.com cookies and then refresh.

gpm7 anni fa

Also on firefox, right click "open in new private window" worked... but I don't think it always does. Maybe something to do with my ip address?

PhasmaFelis7 anni fa

Recently some sites are using HTML5 client-side storage for their paywalls, not just cookies. Forget Me for Chrome seems to get them all, though. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forget-me-clean-hi...

latchkey7 anni fa

Also. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clear-session/maej...

johnweldon7 anni fa

Even opening in a clean incognito window hits the paywall

aerovistae7 anni fa

that doesn't work on wsj.

windsurfer7 anni fa

Worked for me on Firefox. I'm not sure why.

[deleted]7 anni fa

adventured7 anni fa

https://outline.com/zXFSvv

qwerty4561277 anni fa

Thanks! By the way, if somebody happens to know a Python (or whatever) library/example which can do a job similar to what Outline does extracting and tidying pure content from a web page - let me know please. I don't plan any mass-scraping, just want to save some stuff for myself for offline reading.

franey7 anni fa

I've used this wrapper[0] for Firefox's reader mode[1], and it worked well:

[0] https://www.npmjs.com/package/readability-wrapper

[1] https://github.com/mozilla/readability

nullify887 anni fa

I've recently changed a habit of mine where I amass a huge list of bookmarks or files that I'll "read later". I've owned a Kindle for a while now and recently had the idea that I can use the sendtokindle extension to send and store my articles for offline reading. I find it's easier to read the content and my Kindle is usually with me for times I want to read unlike my laptop with all the weight and distractions that come with it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle

thedaemon7 anni fa

Outline works, this link is valid.

[deleted]7 anni fa

baxtr7 anni fa

Clever strategy

Dr. Muyembe set out on his path to an Ebola treatment during the 1995 outbreak. He transferred blood from five survivors to eight patients, hoping that the antibodies that kept some people alive would keep others from dying. Seven of the patients who received the blood transfusion recovered.

markdown7 anni fa

It's the first thing I'd try... because I've seen it done in movies.

nickles7 anni fa

This seems similar to an old technique, 'inoculation', which predates vaccination and was used with some success to protect against smallpox.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation

maxerickson7 anni fa

It's like horse serum. It isn't a less deadly infection conferring the benefit, it is the immune system components of the blood, the antibodies.

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/horse-serum

akiselev7 anni fa

I wonder what an Ethics Review Board would have to say about this...

baldfat7 anni fa

Well lets see? It had a 90% death rate as a disease I would gladly give, receive or beg for it for myself or my child.

Iv7 anni fa

Note that the survivability of Ebola is much higher if you are in an hospital. Basically, if you have access to IV hydration.

Fomite7 anni fa

Serum based treatments are a known and well-documented technique, and not particularly exotic or unethical.

zamadatix7 anni fa

About what particularly? Blood transfusions in general are neither new nor rare.

__s7 anni fa

Note it's survivors, not still sick patients, having their blood taken

[deleted]7 anni fa