1/washing hands, washing hands, washing hands, and washing hands carefully;
2/ not shaking hands, or using hand sanitizers and washing hands carefully after having shaken hands with those who traveled to Africa.
3/ careful and following basic hygiene in public places, especially in public restrooms.
4/ watching out for Ebola symptoms: high fever, pain, losing apetite
There is some hope. No need to worry too much:
".....Several experimental treatments for
Ebola are being developed, which have shown promising results in monkeys when
given up to five days after infection. However, they have not been tested in
more than a handful of people and none have been licensed.
- Two US aid workers have been given an experimental treatment, known as Zmapp, with "apparently encouraging" signs in one of them, said Prof Tom Solomon, director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic infections. The treatment is a mixture of three monoclonal antibodies against the Ebola virus, produced in bioengineered tobacco plants.
- Another experimental drug, developed by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals in Canada, has been tested on monkeys and in a handful of healthy human volunteers. The drug, TKM-Ebola, is designed to target the strands of genetic material of the virus (RNA). A small early safety trial on a small number of human volunteers was put on hold last month when regulators requested further safety data. The Fcompany is hopeful that it may get the go-ahead to continue the trial and is willing to make the drug available.
- The US-based pharmaceutical company, Sarepta Therapeutics, has developed a similar RNA treatment. It has been tested in healthy human volunteers in early safety trials, but has never been tried in a human patient.
...Serum - the part of the blood that contains antibodies - has been used in past Ebola outbreaks. Survivors have high levels of antibodies against the virus in their blood. In one outbreak in 1995 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven out of eight patients survived after being treated with serum from survivors, according to Prof Solomon. Reports suggest that the US aid workers who developed Ebola may have been given serum before being flown home from Africa....
....The Food and Drug Administration in
the US says it is fast-tracking a vaccine that has shown encouraging signs in
monkeys for phase 1 trials in September.
This type of trial is the earliest
study in humans and aims to make sure that drugs are safe and show some chance
of working.....
Experts say that pharmaceutical
companies are unlikely to invest the huge resources needed to develop new drugs
when these would likely be used only occasionally in relatively small numbers
of people. They say investment is needed from international agencies to have
any realistic chance of success in the future...
…Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says clinical trials are to start in September on an Ebola vaccine that has shown promising results during tests on animals.
"By the middle to end of 2015,
we'll be able to have some vaccine - at least to vaccinate health workers - who
put themselves at considerable risk when they take care of these
patients," he told the BBC's Newsday programme.
The US aid workers were treated with
the ZMapp serum before their evacuation from Liberia.
According to a CNN report, quoting a
doctor in Liberia, Dr Brantly's condition improved dramatically within an hour of receiving the drug.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim:
''We have a responsibility to that particular region of Africa''
Service in Mission (SIM), the
Christian aid group that employs Ms Writebol, says she has had two doses of the
drug and did not respond as well as Dr Brantly but she is showing
"improvement".
"She is walking with
assistance... strength is better... has an appetite," SIM spokesman Palmer
Holt told the Washington Post newspaper
in an email on Monday.
Ms Writebol is in a special
isolation ward at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, where Dr Brantly is
being treated by infectious disease specialists…."
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28661616
