August 30, 2014
Zaina Kahuk
News Writer
Headlines
An experimental Ebola drug healed all 18 monkeys infected with the deadly virus in a study. The monkeys were given the drug, ZMapp, three to five days after they were infected with the virus and were showing most symptoms. “The level of improvement was utterly beyond my honest expectation,” said one study leader, Gary Kobinger of the Public Health Agency of Canada in Winnipeg. ZMapp has never been tested on humans before two Americans aid workers who got Ebola while working in Africa were allowed to try it. The rest of the limited supply was given to five others. There is no more ZMapp now, and once a new batch is ready, it still needs some basic tests before it can be tried again during the African outbreak, Fauci said. “We do need to know what the proper dose is” in people and that it’s safe, he said.
