Experimental treatments could help US Ebola patient

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, May 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. missionary who tested positive for Ebola and is undergoing treatment in a German hospital has been given drugs aimed at reducing disease symptoms after exposure to the virus and other therapies, U.S. health officials said on Friday.

There are no vaccines or known drugs specifically approved to treat the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has infected almost 750 people and killed 177.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, citing health privacy laws, would not disclose which specific treatments are being given to the patient, ​who has been identified by the Serge Christian mission organization as ‌Dr. ⁠Peter Stafford.

The World Health Organization, which has declared the outbreak an emergency of international concern, earlier on Friday said Gilead Sciences’ experimental antiviral pill obeldesivir was a promising option. It has said it could take as long as six to nine months to develop a vaccine. 

OBELDESIVIR PROMISE

Ebola expert Thomas Geisbert of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who helped develop Merck’s Ervebo vaccine against the Zaire species of Ebola, has worked with Gilead on obeldesivir.

Geisbert and colleagues tested the Gilead pill against Ebola Zaire and Ebola Sudan – two of the more common of four Ebola species that infect humans – as well as a closely related virus called Marburg in monkeys, but not Bundibugyo.

The drug was 100% effective in preventing Ebola Sudan in the animals, and 80% to 100% protective against Marburg and Ebola Zaire, he told Reuters.

There is no data on whether the drug would be effective in people who already have Ebola symptoms, and the drug has not been tested in the current outbreak strain, he said.

Even so, obeldesivir has been tested in hundreds of people with COVID in a late-stage trial and was shown to be generally safe. 

“I think that that’s something that potentially has some utility here,” he said. 

He said such treatments can be used as a bridge to tamp down outbreaks until vaccines are developed.

Gilead spokesperson Ashleigh Koss said the company is in contact with global and regional health authorities, noting that obeldesivir is predicted to be active against this strain of Ebola based on preclinical data.

ANTIBODY TREATMENT

Another treatment option could be an experimental antibody cocktail called MBP134, which Geisbert helped develop with Dr. James Crowe of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center and licensed to San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical.

Mapp, which developed the antibody treatment ZMAPP during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, is working with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, to supply the treatment for potential use in high-risk individuals, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. 

The cocktail, made from two antibodies isolated from the blood of an Ebola survivor, is designed to target multiple Ebola species, including Ebola Sudan, Zaire and Bundibugyo.

Geisbert and colleagues tested the cocktail in monkeys infected with Bundibugyo and waited seven days until the animals developed symptoms before giving them the antibody treatment.

“This is mimicking somebody that walks into a clinic,” he said. “We were able to protect five or six of those from lethal disease, so that was pretty convincing,” he said, adding that he believes the product is a strong candidate for Bundibugyo.

Mapp has said it is working with the WHO and other authorities as part of the response to the Congo outbreak. The company’s president, Larry Zeitlin, said in an email he could not disclose whether the therapy was being used to treat Americans in Europe.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel)